Creativity Breadcrumb 16: Renaissance Paintings as Maps to the Human Brain

food for creative making, doing, and thinking

I am currently enrolled in a special topics, introductory psychology course that concentrates on “Art and Creativity.” As we began a new chapter today dealing with neuroscience and the different structures of the brain and neurons, my professor, Carolyn Palmer, related different modes of brain imaging to Italian Renaissance art. She revealed to us the striking imagery of brain structure in Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam, which is found in the Sistine Chapel (see below).

 

Not only does this analysis of The Creation of Adam provide insight to the advanced knowledge these Renaissance artists, scientists, and thinkers had about the human body, but also raises questions about the religious and philosophical implications of incorporating science into such paintings. What is the relationship between god’s knowledge and human knowledge? How can one achieve such knowledge? Inspired to do more research, I came across an interesting article from the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, which compares The Creation of Adam to two other paintings from the Italian Renaissance. All three paintings include images that resemble the human brain. Read more here!