10 March 2008

Brain images hidden in Renaissance art?


Kudos to Neatorama for linking this fascinating article in Streetanatomy which suggests that some Renaissance painters used disguised images of the human brain in the composition of their paintings. The image embedded above is familiar to everyone - Michaelangelo's "The Creation of Adam." Underneath it is the same image with a sagittal section of the brain superimposed. The image below is Gerard David's "Transfiguration of Christ" paired with a coronal section of the brain. Is this real, or just a curious coincidence?

3 comments:

  1. If you paint enough things, something is likely to have the same shape as some other thing. Coincidence? Yes.

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  2. Long ago, a doctor was doing his dissertation, I suppose for his PhD and he used as the subject Michaelangelo's painting of God giving life to Adam. He suggested that it was God giving Adam intelligence as the great figure of God resembled a brain. This was where the idea first originated. It was at least 10 years ago, in the L.A. times.

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  3. there are no coincidences ..yes

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