|
 Did Renaissance artists hide their interest in the brain in their paintings?
In 2004, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code skyrocketed to the top of bestseller lists by suggesting that the artwork of Leonardo Da Vinci contained secret messages about the history of the Catholic Church—secrets that, according to the fictional novel, were too dangerous to reveal.
If Brown is right, and da Vinci was hiding secrets in his paintings, he might not have been the only Renaissance artist doing so. According to a team of neuroscientists and radiologists, other painters were hiding their interests in the brain.
The suggestion was first put forth by scientist F.L. Meshberger, who said he saw hidden brain anatomy in Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam.” Soon after, Alessandro Paluzzi, Antonio Belli, Peter Bain and Laura Viva, experts in neurology and radiology, began looking into his theory and found more brain similarities in other renaissance paintings.
“The idea came to me while looking at Raffaello’s ‘Transfiguration,’” said Paluzzi . “Being a neurosurgeon I could immediately see a brain in the painting.”
The team is convinced that the swirling clouds in Raffaello’s painting are not simply decoration but the coronal section of the human brain.
It’s not a secret that many artists during the Renaissance era were fascinated with the anatomical sciences. However, most of their commission pieces were for the religious clergy, and experts suggest that these artists hid their deeper knowledge of the human brain in their pieces because their interest would be seen as sacrilegious.
Were these artists really trying to hide anatomically correct images in their religious artwork? Or, as critics of The Da Vinci Code would argue, do we simply choose to see what we want to see? Dan Brown would say that’s up to you to determine.
 |
Popular Brain Tips 
