Brain stem hidden in Sistine Chapel painting?

Neuroscientists studying Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling suggest that the artist worked a depiction of the human brainstem into the neck of God in the painting "Separation of Light From Darkness." From CNN:

"He recognized that the brain was an important structure, and I think he included it in the creation of the universe because he recognized that this is one of the most magnificent things that God had created," (Johns Hopkins University neurosurgeon Rafael) Tamargo said...
In the image above, on the left, you can see a comparison between the neck of God in the painting and a real brain stem. On the right, notice the different angles of light on the figure, which was uncommon for Michelangelo...
Tamargo and colleagues are not the first to propose that Michelangelo hid brain anatomy in his paintings. An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1990 by Dr. Frank Lynn Meshberger suggested that the Renaissance master's "Creation of Adam," another fresco from the Sistine Chapel, depicts the human brain.

"Michelangelo hid brain image in chapel, scientists say"

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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Anonymous

The idea that Michelangelo would want to paint a human brain in God’s neck — on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel no less — “because he recognized that this is one of the most magnificent things that God had created” is staggeringly preposterous (and a little arrogant about our place in the scheme of things as well). What next, a Trappist beer bottle in his nose? Because those are pretty awesome too.
angusm

“Brainstem! Brainstem!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snO68aJTOpM
RevelryByNight

Well, I’ll be the contrarian and say that I totally buy it.
Not only that, but I see the clouds above his head as the brain itself.
I wouldn’t put it past Michaelangelo to create an homage to the brain in his work. A whole hell of a lot of Renaissance paintings contain hidden symbols and messages.
For a totally scientific compendium, please visit that paragon of rational thought, Cracked.
Anonymous

This was on the TV show QI a while ago.

He depicted other organs in his paintings too because he was fascinated by anatomy.

During his time if you were just watching a human dissection you would be breaking the law.

This is why it was hidden.
Anonymous

From the mind of man comes God…
mdh

You don’t think he meant that the brain IS god.

It’s not shown out there amongst the creation, it is depicted as the very center of the creator.
Vidya108

I don’t buy it. I mean, I don’t much doubt that Michelangelo would have held a view along those lines. But I think it’s just an example of detailed anatomical structure which looks — to us — like a brain/stem.

I say “to us” to highlight what I think is a fundamental problem with this particular conjecture. The portion of the painting looks a lot like the *illustrations* of the brain that are found in every biology/psychology textbook around today. In fact, if we (‘we’ here including modern neuroscientists) were to look right at a human brain in our own hands, we would probably see something of that configuration — but in part because we have been trained to see it through repeated exposure to images which suggest that this is what a brain looks like.

It’s a big leap from this to say that Michelangelo, in whatever exposure he had to dissected anatomy and visual representations thereof, would see the structure in the same way. Not just styles of medical illustration, but actual ways of seeing bodies and their parts have changed over time. The claim that Michelangelo would see — and in turn, represent — the brain in a way so very similar to a 21st-century college textbook would need some solid, detailed historical work on historical practices of medical visualization and representation to be a convincing position, at least for me.
- mdh
  
  alternately, like all revered artists he was AHEAD OF HIS TIME in his worldview.
  
  Which is to say, we see it that way BECAUSE HE DID.
Treespeed

*Cough*
Pareidola

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia
- freshacconci
  
  Buzzkill. You too Vidya.
astrochimp

I call shenanigans!

How is this different from claiming to see images of Jesus et al. in toast or tree bark, etc?
- ryanrafferty
  
  I agree … Michelangelo could have easily drawn god or an angel holding on to a brain with rays of light emanating from it… what was stopping him?
  - Jerril
    
    Michelangelo could have easily drawn god or an angel holding on to a brain with rays of light emanating from it… what was stopping him?
    
    His patrons wrath, and probably trial for Heresy shortly after that.
- Chevan
  
  The difference is that this is probably intentional.
  
  And for Vidya108′s comment, I’m sorry, but given the competing theories that A: the painting resembles contemporary illustrations because they’re both accurate depictions of anatomy and B: An artist known to be able to paint necks correctly coincidentally painted one weird neck that we recognize as a brain because of contemporary standards of illustration, I find A to be a much simpler and easier to believe theory.
ryanrafferty

Well I don’t know if I buy the brain in the neck theory… What is obvious is that God does happen to have a nice set of breasts… roughly a b cup.
sterling

Next thing you know scientists will be seeing DNA in they fussili pasta…

How is this any different from religious nuts who see Jesus in a tortilla? Oh wait, they have /science/ on their side so its all good.
Anonymous

Michelangelo understood that the trachea and larynx are in the throat (being depicted), not the brain stem! Sorry CNN. Tamargo and colleagues should take Anatomy 101.
Anonymous

The previous Sistine insight — the one re-published last year theorizing that the Creation of Man was an anthropomorphized sagitall section of the brain — made perfect sense visually, sculpturally and logically, and was a meaningful contribution.

This one, however, makes no sense visually, sculpturally or logically. We’re simply looking at the neck’s anatomy lit from below. God’s major veins and arteries, SCMs, digastric, thyroid glands, the various cartilages and other forms of the neck / throat are exactly where they should be. Pareidolia, indeed.
xzzy

It’s unfortunate that the only way to confirm this theory is to die and ask Michelangelo in person.

Just another item I’ll have to add to my list of things to do in the afterlife.
Anonymous

The whole brain is in that ceiling…

http://unitedstatesofearthbycozec.blogspot.com/2010/03/brain-on-sistine-chapel-ceiling.html

…allegedly…
TimDrew

OK, the brain thing in his “Creation of Adam” – maybe.

what’s pictured here, however, looks less like a brain stem to me- more like a… trachea, perhaps?

anyhow, God does have a fabulous superhero outfit.
Xeno

Big deal. I saw Ronald McDonalds Image in the left eye of the image of the Virgin Mary that appeared on my Egg Mcmuffin this morning in my Stigmata Meal at PopeDonalds.
timothystotz

This neck is a… neck. Michelangelo drew the anterior belly of the digastric, the submaxillary glands, and SCM muscles surrounding the form of the larynx ( hyoid bone, thyroid cartilage, cricoid cartilage, thyroid gland, trachea, etc.)

http://www.yorku.ca/earmstro/journey/images/larynx.gif

Here is a shockingly bad drawing made by a doctor who also knows the anatomy of the neck, labelled conveniently for these researchers, who have no idea what they are looking at:

http://chestofbooks.com/health/anatomy/Human-Body-Construction/images/Fig-161-Anterior-surface-of-the-neck.jpg
timothystotz

Reni was secretly thinking of tornadoes and grass, and not lighting the true form of the neck:
http://www.louvre.fr/llv/oeuvres/detail_notice.jsp?CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673225753&CURRENT_LLV_NOTICE%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673225753&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=9852723696500827&baseIndex=110&bmLocale=en

Francois Lemoyne was secretly thinking about a very, very tiny fish he had for dinner the night before, and not lighting the true form of the neck:
http://arts-graphiques.louvre.fr/fo/visite?srv=mipe&paramAction=actionGetImage&idImgPrinc=1&idFicheOeuvre=208325&provenance=mlo&searchInit=

And I was secretly thinking about scientists who cannot draw, lecturing the public about drawing errors in the Sistine Chapel, and not lighting the true form of the neck:

http://www.timothystotz.com/silverfortress/tws.zephyr.drapery2.take2.fb.jpg
Xenu

Oh god…
timothystotz

PS… the researchers have also mis-identified the light direction required to hit the front plane of the trachea, as depicted. The front plane of the trachea is lit in perfect agreement with the light direction indicated, hitting God’s lower chest from below. The SCM muscle forms the nearest side plane, which logically darkens to a half-tone as it orients away from the single light source. There is no second light direction indicated in M’s drawing of the neck, or anything else, and none needed.
- timothystotz
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Larynx_external_en.svg
  
  http://animations.3d4medical.com/Trachea-Bronchi-5-animation_AN1343.html
  
  http://animations.3d4medical.com/Larynx-Rotation-animation_AN1636.html
  
  http://animations.3d4medical.com/Thyroid-Tumor-animation_AN1585.html
inness

“He recognized that plumbing was an important structure, and I think he included it in the creation of the universe because he recognized that this is one of the most magnificent things that God had created,” said Melvin Murray (Licensed Plumber, Centerville, Ohio).
simonbarsinister

Take a closer look. It’s clearly the Flying Spaghetti Monster (bless his noodly appendages)!
TJBlackwell

I was inspired to cook up a quick Photoshopped version of The Sistine Brain when reading about this story a few weeks back:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tjblackwell/4679548147/

There’s every chance that this interpretation is a scientific pareidolia but I love the idea of hidden themes in artwork – and Michelangelo was a master of subtext!

Whilst I think The Sistine Brain serves as a neat metaphor for atheism, it’s almost certain that such an inference was not Michaelangelo’s intention – he was undoubtedly a religious person. Christian imagery does persist throughout his work but much has been written of how he subscribed to notions of Spiritualism in later years, for which he was condemned by Pope Paul IV.

The basis of Spiritualism is that the Church is an invalid medium for the divine: people should have their own understanding of God without direction from worldly religious establishments. Why bother with a ‘middle man’ if your God is a panentheistic one, where He is synonymous with the world around you? (That’s where the philosophical debates about the definition of God, and thus Atheism, get started!)
Brainspore

These neuroscientists must be a hoot to go cloud-gazing with.
Anonymous

Why does God (as depicted here) – have large breasts?
wheezer

In related news, Jesus face found on grilled cheese sandwich.
mellowknees

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
wylkyn

What do they call it when people see patterns and connections where none really exist?

Oh, yeah. “Religion.”
Rich Keller

I’m not buying it. I’ve seen those same forms used to represent the throat in Burne Hogarth’s Dynamic Anatomy. This is what a throat looks like when the head is tilted back in certain styles of art.

Is there any evidence that Michelangelo dissected the human brain and had knowledge of its interior anatomy or that he thought of the brain as being as important as Dr. Tamargo claims? As a renaissance dude, Michelangelo would have left notes and sketches as evidence of this.

Like they say, if you have a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. I guess that if you’re a neurologist, sooner or later, everything starts to look like a brain. It’s an interesting idea, though, and there are worse things to speculate about.
Sekino

Not sure I’m following. You think I have a ‘bad attitude’ because I advance that pareidolia could possibly explain this ‘brain stem’ image?

Look, I’ve never said there’s NO WAY Michaelangelo painted maps of brains throughout his work (and as an art major, I DO have total respect for the guy). I’d just rather see more evidence supporting that theory aside from the art alone, and OUR interpretation of the images in a vacuum, before getting excited. Sorry if that brushes you the wrong way.
Anonymous

Humm …. you all make some good points about putting there what you want to see. Here’s one from me. What really stood out to me is the size of gods chest. It looks like god has a rack of breasts. Which makes sense for a creator and since god has no ‘wife’ … well unless you are Moormon, but either way that chest looks kinda femalish to me.
Just say’n.
thefuture

Hell, even if it’s just pareidolia, this is payback for all those Jesus toasts. A few zillion more and we’ll call it quits.
Sekino

I’m with the ‘pareidolia’ crowd. Lots of religious/ghost/UFO sightings really, stunningly look like faces, figures or objects, just like this neck may really looks like a brain stem. It’s every bit as likely to be a striking coincidence.

I don’t think we should treat ‘secular’ pareidolia as any more meaningful than religious or spiritually-themed illusions, just because of their nature. I wonder how many anatomically-correct images of brains or glands we could find every day if we started looking for them in nature, objects and substances around us.
- mdh
  
  Wherever you do look, avoid mirrors. Not sure you could handle them with that attitude.