Freud was an avid traveler throughout his life. Like many German men of letters, his “heart was drawn to the south,” unser Herz ziegt nach dem Süden, most notably Italy. Paris also figured critically in the origins of his psychoanalytic science. There, in 1885-1886, he worked under the guidance of Jean-Martin Charcot at l’Hôpital de la Salpêtrière, exploring the roots of hysteria. While in Paris, Freud wrote regularly to his future wife Martha Bernays, animating his letters with meticulous descriptions of his lodgings and travels through the city. The selection of images included here map his relations to space— domestic and global—and are distinguished by Freud’s growing awareness of the way domestic space can serve both as a therapeutic site and as an incubator of many distinctively psychoanalytic maladies.
Map Dividing the ‘Lands’ of Central Europe (1882)
Included in a letter to Martha, Freud’s map marks his family’s scattered places of domicile within the geography of Central Europe. A bold black line connects Vienna, where Freud lived, to Wandsbeck, the borough of Hamburg where Martha was staying. At the Vienna end of the line, Freud has written “Es Regnet” (it rains), ostensibly commentary on the local weather but perhaps, as well, on his general mood. In bisecting the phrase, the line separates Es (it) from the rain, in a way similar to how Freud would later divide the id (Es) from the higher functions of the psyche (the “reigning” rather the “raining” Ego).
Sigmund Freud Papers, Library of Congress
Map of Paris (1885)
Freud’s psychogeographic map of Paris demarcates zones and nodes of particular importance to him. His visual language draws on his training in scientific illustration, transforming Paris into a histological specimen. The Seine becomes a main nerve axon (fiber) enclosed and traversed by a nerve plexus (branching network) made up of urban arteries, meandering routes, and cultural synapses (Notre Dame, Salpêtrière, the Louvre, and the Pantheon).
Sigmund Freud Papers, Library of Congress
Drawing of Freud’s Room in Vienna, from a Letter to Martha Bernays (October 1883)
Sigmund Freud Papers, Library of Congress
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