May 27, 2010
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At the age of 17 he began dissecting corpses from the church graveyard. Between the years 1508 and 1512 he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Michelangelo Buonarroti—known by his first name the world over as the singular artistic genius, sculptor and architect—was also an anatomist, a secret he concealed by destroying almost all of his anatomical sketches and notes. Now, 500 years after he drew them, his hidden anatomical illustrations have been found—painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, cleverly concealed from the eyes of Pope Julius II and countless religious worshipers, historians, and art lovers for centuries—inside the body of God.
This is the conclusion of Ian Suk and Rafael Tamargo, in their paper in the May 2010 issue of the scientific journal Neurosurgery. Suk and Tamargo are experts in neuroanatomy at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1990, physician Frank Meshberger published a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association deciphering Michelangelo’s imagery with the stunning recognition that the depiction in God Creating Adam in the central panel on the ceiling was a perfect anatomical illustration of the human brain in cross section. Meshberger speculates that Michelangelo surrounded God with a shroud representing the human brain to suggest that God was endowing Adam not only with life, but also with supreme human intelligence. Now in another panel The Separation of Light from Darkness (shown at left), Suk and Tamargo have found more. Leading up the center of God’s chest and forming his throat, the researchers have found a precise depiction of the human spinal cord and brain stem.
Is the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel a 500 year-old puzzle that is only now beginning to be solved? What was Michelangelo saying by construction the voice box of God out of the brain stem of man? Is it a sacrilege or homage?
It took Michelangelo four years to complete the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He proceeded from east to west, starting from the entrance of the Chapel to finish above the altar. The last panel he painted depicts God separating light from darkness. This is where the researchers report that Michelangelo hid the human brain stem, eyes and optic nerve of man inside the figure of God directly above the altar.
Art critics and historians have long puzzled over the odd anatomical irregularities in Michelangelo’s depiction of God’s neck in this panel, and by the discordant lighting in the region. The figures in the fresco are illuminated diagonally from the lower left, but God’s neck, highlighted as if in a spotlight, is illuminated straight-on and slightly from the right. How does one reconcile such clumsiness by the world’s master of human anatomy and skilled portrayer of light with bungling the image of God above the altar? Suk and Tamargo propose that the hideous goiter-disfigured neck of God is not a mistake, but rather a hidden message. They argue that nowhere else in any of the other figures did Michelangelo foul up his anatomically correct rendering of the human neck.
They show that if one superimposes a detail of God’s odd lumpy neck in the Separation of Light and Darkness on a photograph of the human brain as seen from below, the lines of God’s neck trace precisely the features of the human brain [see images at right].
There is something else odd about this picture. A role of fabric extends up the center of God’s robe in a peculiar manner. The clothing is bunched up here as is seen nowhere else, and the fold clashes with what would be the natural drape of fabric over God’s torso. In fact, they observe, it is the human spinal cord, ascending to the brain stem in God’s neck. At God’s waist, the robe twists again in a peculiar crumpled manner, revealing the optic nerves from two eyes, precisely as Leonardo Da Vinci had shown them in his illustration of 1487. Da Vinci and Michelangelo were contemporaries and acquainted with each other’s work.
The mystery is whether these neuroanatomical features are hidden messages or whether the Sistine Chapel a Rorshach tests upon which anyone can extract an image that is meaningful to themselves. The authors of the paper are, after all, neuroanatomists. The neuroanatomy they see on the ceiling may be nothing more than the man on the moon.
But Michelangelo also depicted other anatomical features elsewhere in the ceiling, according to other scholars; notably the kidney, which was familiar to Michelangelo and was of special interest to him as he suffered from kidney stones.
If the hidden figures are intentional, what do they mean? The authors resist speculation, but a great artist does not merely reproduce an object in a work of art, he or she evokes meaning through symbolism. Is Separation of Light from Darkness an artistic comment on the enduring clash between science and religion? Recall that this was the age when the monk Copernicus was denounced by the Church for theorizing that the Earth revolved around the sun. It was a period of struggle between scientific observation and the authority of the Church, and a time of intense conflict between Protestants and Catholics.
It is no secret that Michelangelo’s relationship with the Catholic Church became strained. The artist was a simple man, but he grew to detest the opulence and corruption of the Church. In two places in the masterpiece, Michelangelo left self portraits—both of them depicting himself in torture. He gave his own face to Saint Bartholomew’s body martyred by being skinned alive, and to the severed head of Holofernes, who was seduced and beheaded by Judith.
Michelangelo was a devout person, but later in life he developed a belief in Spiritualism, for which he was condemned by Pope Paul IV. The fundamental tenet of Spiritualism is that the path to God can be found not exclusively through the Church, but through direct communication with God. Pope Paul IV interpreted Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, painted on the wall of the Sistine Chapel 20 years after completing the ceiling, as defaming the church by suggesting that Jesus and those around him communicated with God directly without need of Church. He suspended Michelangelo’s pension and had fig leaves painted over the nudes in the fresco. According to the artist’s wishes, Michelangelo’s body is not buried on the grounds of the Vatican, but is instead interred in a tomb in Florence.
Perhaps the meaning in the Sistine Chapel is not of God giving intelligence to Adam, but rather that intelligence and observation and the bodily organ that makes them possible lead without the necessity of Church directly to God. The material is rich for speculation and the new findings will doubtlessly spark endless interpretation. We may never know the truth, but in Separation of Light from Darkness, Michelangelo’s masterpiece combines the worlds of art, religion, science, and faith in a provocative and awe inspiring work of art, which may also be a mirror.
Images from "Concealed Neuroanatomy in Michelangelo’s Separation of Light From Darkness in the Sistine Chapel," by Ian Suk and Rafael J. Tamargo in Neurosurgery, Vol. 66, No. 5, pp. 851-861.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
R. Douglas Fields, Ph. D. is the Chief of the Nervous System Development and Plasticity Section at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and Adjunct Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. Fields, who conducted postdoctoral research at Stanford University, Yale University, and the NIH, is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Neuron Glia Biology and member of the editorial board of several other journals in the field of neuroscience. He is the author of the new book The Other Brain (Simon and Schuster), about cells in the brain (glia) that do not communicate using electricity. His hobbies include building guitars, mountain climbing, and scuba diving. He lives in Silver Spring, Md.
The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
5/27/10: Typographical errors were corrected thanks to readers’ comments.
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Great Article, although not totally convincing – but nothing ever is. Always room for some speculation. I happen to believe this is in part due to the sensitivity of the observer and the rose colored glasses through which they view the piece and the universe. The work is a priceless piece of art that transcends all this speculation and is appreciated for its own sake and astounding beauty.
Link to thisGreat article, although not totally convincing – but nothing ever is. there alway is and will be room for interpretation-part of what it means to be human-God did give us this wonderful power to rationalize and it does stem from the brain with which God endowed us. This work transcends all this this speculation, however and for me is appreciated, solely for its artistic and astounding and profound beauty.
Link to thisYes, I agree. that left-brain tendency to evaluate "what is there" gets in the way of artistic appreciation. The only thing that really IS there is paint on plaster. All the rest is human perception.
Link to thisWhen these neuroscientist authors lay on the grass and look at the clouds do they see shapes of the human brain? I don’t know what the brain looks like so I see sheep and big cotton balls.
Link to thisIt seems to me that if you look at the painting, you can make an argument that it depicts whatever you want by choosing a particular section and using arbitrarily drawn lines. I think that these anatomists are seeing what the want to see, not necessarily what Michealangelo intended.
Link to this@airihannah, "Also, is it me, or did anyone else notice that this particular image of "God" is also dressed in pink and appears to have breasts." When one considers that prior to that moment god had already existed for an eternity, in complete darkness with nothing around to occupy his time, I think it is understandable that he had poor fashion sense and a hefty pair of man boobs. Makes you wonder though, if he created Adam naked why did he feel the need to throw on the wife’s nightgown? Could he be trying to hide his sins or just embarrassed about the size of his junk?
Link to this"It was a period of struggle between scientific observation and the authority of the Church, and a time of intense conflict between Protestants and Catholics." What total nonsense! The Reformation hadn’t even started. Luther began his "protest" in 1517! For a scientist Fields makes a lousy historian. And the so-called "conflict between science and the authority of the Church" is a myth held to with dogmatic conviction by the current historical winners who get to re-write history to suit themselves.
Link to thisWonderful and amazing! But you need a really good editor, Mr. Fields.
Link to thisI hope that someone out there agrees with me when I say that you can find any image that you wish in a work of art if you look hard enough. I’m sure that they deserve a pat on the back for creativity, but if I walked around scrutinizing works of art for hidden messages I would find it too. Only I would admit that I was just pulling it out of my hind end.
Link to thisIf you turn the image upside down it looks like male genitals. I wonder what Michelangelo was implying by sticking this down the lord’s throat…? Could explain why god created Adam first I guess.
@MeeMaw, I agree. People see what they are looking for, what they expect to see, what they want to see. The article here on visual illusions should have taught the authors something about this.
Link to thisBruce Shaheen, Secretary
Link to thisA science teacher at Snow Canyon High School, St. George Utah, Bruce is a graduate of Southern Utah University. He has bachelor’s degrees in zoology and chemistry, and a master’s degree in Secondary Education.
I can’t see how the part leading to the chest is anyway related to an illustration of the human spinal chord. I hope I could get a closer look to the image or just a better illustration with a guide on how the stem was formed.
Should we find more mysteries of Michelangelo, especially on the design of his drawing’s clothing, I hope someone could share it with me here: http://www.businessdeutschland.de/en/list-industries/leather-and-leatherware-33.html
Link to thisWhat if Michelangelo told the truth, as all great artists must?
What if the Buddha told the same truth? "With our thoughts," he is said to have said, "we make the world."
What if the brain IS God? A re-reading of the creation myth in Genesis from this perspective is instructive. This was posited by my dear friend and teacher W. Brugh Joy, M.D. twenty years ago in his book Avalanche: Heretical Reflections on the Dark and the Light.
Is it possible, then, that we create God in our own image? He sorta kinda looks like us in many depictions. Us, of course, meaning us men.
Why not "She?" Why is God male? The brain is masculine, as the body is feminine. The fundamental split is brain/body, or good/evil, or light/dark, or masculine/feminine, spiritual/sexual, conscious/unconscious, us/them.
Ha! Creatrix, more likely. Just look at her, at Nature, at woman! Much closer, I’m afraid, to the mystery of creation than I. Secretly afraid.
Brain as God? Doesn’t this leave us without a legitimate Creator? No. It leaves us without a Concept, a Construct, a Belief, an idea, a thought about God. It leaves us with our first shot, as Brugh might say, of finding God.
With the Garden of Eden as the womb, the story takes on profound new possibility, depth, meaning. It’s the story of the birth of each of us, and of all of us. It describes the struggle of the creation of conscious life forms, awakened to the knowledge of good and evil, male and female, I and thou, us and them. We are cast out of paradise (unconsciousness) into the cold cruel world. You remember.
Not very Scientific, sir. No. More poetic. More symbolic. More artistic. Perhaps, as all artists must, Michelangelo told a deeper truth?
Link to thisWhat if Michelangelo told the truth, as all great artists must?
What if the Buddha told the same truth? "With our thoughts," he is said to have said, "we make the world."
What if the brain IS God? A re-reading of the creation myth in Genesis from this perspective is instructive. This was posited by my friend and teacher W. Brugh Joy, M.D. twenty years ago, in his book Avalanche: Heretical Reflections on the Dark and the Light.
Is it possible, then, that we create God in our own image? He sorta kinda looks like us in many depictions. Us, of course, meaning us men.
Why not "She?" Why is God male? The brain is masculine, as the body is feminine. The fundamental split is brain/body, or good/evil, or light/dark, or masculine/feminine, spiritual/sexual, conscious/unconscious.
Evil. Ha! Creatrix, more likely. Just look at her, at Nature, at woman! Much closer, I’m afraid, to the mystery of creation than I. Secretly afraid.
Brain as God? Doesn’t this heresy leave us without a legitimate Creator? No. It leaves us without a Concept, a Construct, a Belief, an idea, a thought, however cherished- or fanciful. It leaves us with our first shot, as Brugh might say, of finding God.
With the Garden of Eden as the womb, the story takes on profound new possibility, depth, meaning. It becomes the story of the birth of each of us, and of all of us. It describes the struggle of the creation of conscious life forms, awakened to the knowledge of good and evil, male and female, I and thou, life, and most of all death. We are cast out of paradise (unconsciousness) into the cold, cruel world. You remember.
Not very Scientific, sir! No. More poetic. More symbolic. More artistic. Perhaps, as artists must, Michelangelo told a deeper truth.
Link to thisTrue he seem to have breasts in the pic….I think he was trying to say (as described in the power of subconsciousness) that God is our brain. it can be described in a way that we think we communicate with God but we only send signals to our brain as we are talking to him. instead those signals and beliefs then impact some universal movements which happen when we believe something strongly. If they don’t happen we find excuses anyway as we didn’t deserve it or something like that.
Link to thisAs to the point that people of the time thought the heart was the seat of the mind. That may very well been true of the average citizen or even of some of the more learned people of the time. But let us not forget Michelangelo was an anatomist. He had seen details of the human body no one else had. And anyone dissecting the heart would realize in short order that it is nothing more than muscle with a few flaps (the valves) thrown in. The brain on the other hand is extremely complex and has large nerve connections to the eyes and the spinal cord that connects to everything else. I had thought that, in ancient times, they believed the heart was the seat of emotion, the liver the source of the soul and the brain the source of thought.
Link to thisThe Judeo-Christian God has always been depicted as male because at the time of the writings Men were the dominant sex with women being in a very submissive role. It is believed by many that God has no sex as He has no need to reproduce. As for paintings and art work dipicting Him as human that is the only way people had to create an icon of Him. Being created in his image refers (again it is believed there are no scriptures saying one way or another) that we were created to think and have the same values that he does.
(I was a Christian minister for 25 years before becoming an atheist.)
Link to thisTotal rubbish! What would be the point of disguising some odd view of a brain as the throat and beard of God? I don’t really see the resemblance anyway, and I think it is a bit delusional, much like seeing the Virgin in a potato chip as another reader quipped. It is true that painters often enjoy slipping images into clouds or other random places (and a picture of the Pope into the denizens of Hell I am told). A bit of humor and perhaps a few too many wines mixed with paint fumes, lying on his back painting the ceiling. When I was in Art School I did much the same, but in this case, I am quite sure the artist was simply trying to represent a face and throat from an odd perspective.
Link to thisMeshberger speculates that Michelangelo surrounded God with a shroud representing the human brain to suggest that God was endowing Adam not only with life, but also with supreme human intelligence.
True – God revealed himself to mankind by giving the Homo Sapiens a powerful human imagination. Human Imagination is our only link with God, the creator of everything! It also gave us the power to progress through the ages.
Link to thishttp://novan.com/god.htm
What utter nonsense.
Link to thisThere was no "secret" that Michelangelo studfied anatomy and put anatomical features into his paintings. There was no "clash between science and religion" or "struggle between scientific observation and the authority of the Church"- this idea was only invented in the 19th century. Copernicus was never "denounced by the Church" (unless you mean the Lutheran church). It was not "a time of intense conflict between Protestants and Catholics." Protestantism had not yet been invented.
Don’t worry your just seeing your dominating ego being deflated of its higher intelligence as we bring you gently back down to earth for a birds eye tour that see through both eyes with nothing to divide but your wonderful civilization that’s built on nothing more than what’s half ass right!
Link to thisDon’t worry your just seeing your dominating ego being deflated of its higher intelligence as we bring you gently back down to earth for a birds eye tour that see through both eyes with nothing to divide but your wonderful civilization that’s built on nothing more than what’s half ass right!
Link to thisThree times is the charm for your depression! Don’t worry your just seeing your dominating ego being deflated of its higher intelligence as we bring you gently back down to earth for a birds eye tour that see through both eyes with nothing to divide but your wonderful civilization that’s built on nothing more than what’s half ass right!
Link to thisToday, the biggest sin is not believing in God…but to be born poor. This is the fact of life.
Link to thisPerhaps one could consult with a neurochemist and learn
Link to thisthat all God perceptions lie within the brain via the 5ht-2a/2c
receptors. A convenient brain lesion or receptor agonist will
elicit the way more clearly. There is no God. Get over it and
live a decent love filled life as possible.
it looks more like a penis to me! Sorry! it does! lol!
Link to this@Tom J – The ancient Egyptians considered the heart the seat of consciousness, but by the 14th century people were aware that the brain was the organ of thought.
Link to thisEditors! "…role of fabric…"? These minor grammatical and typographical errors are getting more common in SciAm…what’s going on? Some are more serious than just typos, e.g., the latest issue classed benzene as a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon ("PAH")! More vigilance, please!
Link to thisAlso, I wonder if this is just another Jesus-in-the-tortilla thing. The inset photo of a disembodied brain does little to convince me.
Link to thisVox Populi, Vox Dei? The voice of the people (not higher-ups) is the voice of God. A principle of the early church.
In Genesis Adam & Eve relate directly with God, not through king/priests, as was the belief in the surrounding nations.
Also in Genesis: "God created humanity, male and female God made them." The basis of religion would be right relationships, and the equal relationship of male and female would be reflective of humanity’s relationship with God. Of course this is a literary interpretation, not necessarily an interpretation from a believer.
Perhaps Michelangelo came into contact with people who were familiar with St Maximus, a font of theological reflection in the Eastern Church. St. Maximus taught that all humanity came from God and would be returned to God, and that Christ’s mission was to unite God and humanity by becoming fully human, not to die on the cross in a "bloody sacrifice" to assuage humanity’s disobedience/insult to God and thereby redeem/buy back humanity’s salvation (dominant view in Western Church). Following his logic, Maximus also taught that humanity could not be united with God unless all humans were united with God. He taught that all humans, including those outside the church, would be saved. Humanity, as the image of God, would attain a union with God that would somehow preserve individuality while endowing each person with a shared divinity with God. We would indeed become "like to God."
It is not too far fetched to think that the ideas of Maximus, including universal salvation and many paths to God outside the Church, would be familiar to Michelangelo. The last heir of the Byzantine Emperors, a Dominican friar from Cyprus, was bought to Rome and imprisoned by the Inquisition for teaching these ideas. For many years the Pope’s theologians tried to get him to recant these beliefs before burning him. Knolwedge of these prison debates must have leaked out.
Link to thisVox Populi, Vox Dei? The voice of the people (not higher-ups) is the voice of God. A principle of the early church.
In Genesis Adam & Eve relate directly with God, not through king/priests, as was the belief in the surrounding nations.
Also in Genesis: "God created humanity, male and female God made them." The basis of religion would be right relationships, and the equal relationship of male and female would be reflective of humanity’s relationship with God. Of course this is a literary interpretation, not necessarily an interpretation from a believer.
Perhaps Michelangelo came into contact with people who were familiar with St Maximus, a font of theological reflection in the Eastern Church. St. Maximus taught that all humanity came from God and would be returned to God, and that Christ’s mission was to unite God and humanity by becoming fully human, not to die on the cross in a "bloody sacrifice" to assuage humanity’s disobedience/insult to God and thereby redeem/buy back humanity’s salvation (dominant view in Western Church). Following his logic, Maximus also taught that humanity could not be united with God unless all humans were united with God. He taught that all humans, including those outside the church, would be saved. Humanity, as the image of God, would attain a union with God that would somehow preserve individuality while endowing each person with a shared divinity with God. We would indeed become "like to God."
It is not too far fetched to think that the ideas of Maximus, including universal salvation and many paths to God outside the Church, would be familiar to Michelangelo. The last heir of the Byzantine Emperors, a Dominican friar from Cyprus, was bought to Rome and imprisoned by the Inquisition for teaching these ideas. For many years the Pope’s theologians tried to get him to recant these beliefs before burning him. Knolwedge of these prison debates must have leaked out.
Link to thisIr is obviously god’s vagina put in a very unusual place but it explains how he gave birth to speech and as such speaks volumnes. Strangely enough it is also rather phallic so that may indicate the unisexual nature of God. Plus the way (s)he is fingering and massaging the heavens exemplifies the foreplay that is involved with creation itself and also the ultimate in taking pleasure in the act of creation and creationism!
Link to thisThank you Tom!! Your have hit the nail on the head!!!
Link to thisthose two great men seem still above us
Link to thisin their exact life and skill.
As Ayn Rand once stated, the Attila the Huns and the Witch Doctors both compete to control man’s mind. Pity that time period when they were united as one.
Link to thisStunning article. To merely ask "sacrilege or homage" is distraction — indeed a symptom of the loss of "being." The metaphor to frame this in is hypostasis. Frame language, our tool of thought, as the fruit of Eden’s "Forbidden" Tree, consciousness itself as it split off from Nature. Michelangelo’s secret message is, like Jung’s, our wholeness; the gnowing that we’re rooted, and not split off at all. I think of a game I used to play with the kids as we drove through strange towns on long journeys. "None of these houses are what they appear to be," I’d tell them. "They’re facades, the people actors. They all stop the game after you pass by; it all exists just to make you think there’s really something real here." We’d laugh and consider this — yes, it’s quite the ground of psychosis, and, I think a good explore for the young mind as it’s taking its perspective. It’s also the mindset of Fundamentalist Christianity: the soul imprisoned in the body, man and his dominance over animals, the planet not as mother but as mere stage to act out some great test of obedience to a punishing god, heaven and hell the ultimate destination. Psychosis.
Thank you, Michelangelo.
Link to thisAnd what’s about the boobs that are clearly visible?
Link to thisRe the comment of Cataleptix:
I belong to the Episcopal Church, and I have never felt "bullied" into its point of view.
David T.
Link to thisIt seems that Michaelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael, all attended meetings of groups that were concerned with ancient, esoteric knowledge, where the MIND and the heart were assigned an important role in conscious evolution, or in the capacity of human beings to be a self-evolving species. Those traditions held as truth that the brain DOESN’T do the thinking, that thinking SHAPES the brain, just as light "brings out" the optical nerves until eyes appear, but not so in species that live in darkness, where eyes aren’t needed. Old traditions like the Hermetic tradition, Gnosticism, etc., held that it was in the mind that evolution could be experienced and communication with God was possible – the heart, mind and speech (larynx) had to be ennobled, so that our thoughts, words and deeds would contribute to the evolution of human kind. It makes sense that Michaelangelo would place the brain in the area of the larynx, since in esoteric traditions, the Christ was sometimes called the LOGOS, meaning WORD. Some traditions state that in the future, when we have all mastered the WORD, and ennobled the larynx, this will be the place of birth for human beings, and not the female reproductive organs. They say that lust and sex will not be part of the process then. Does this help in understanding where these artists’ ideas came from?
Link to thisDr. Fields writes "Recall that this was the age when the monk Copernicus was denounced by the Church for theorizing that the Earth revolved around the sun. It was a period of struggle between scientific observation and the authority of the Church, and a time of intense conflict between Protestants and Catholics."
It certainly was the age in which these things happened, but Copernicus did not publish "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" until 1543, the year he died, and it was not until 1616 that heliocentrism was officially denounced. This was more than a century after the Michelangelo Sistine ceiling painting discussed here. Up until that time there had been very little conflict between the church and science, except that Aristotle’s writings on "natural philosophy" has been condemned by the Synod of Sens (which includes Paris). The Reformation did not begin until 1516, so there was no intense conflict in 1508.
"Pope Paul IV interpreted Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, painted on the wall of the Sistine Chapel 20 years after completing the ceiling, as defaming the church by suggesting that Jesus and those around him communicated with God directly without need of Church."
Pope Paul IV was had some very strange ideas and did order the painting over of "obscene" portions of "The Last Judgement", but even with his believe that salvation could only come through the church, he certainly did not believe that Jesus needed the church to communicate with God. The church has taught since the fourth century that Jesus is God. John’s Gospel quote Jesus as saying "No one comes to the Father except through me.", so as a believer even Paul IV needed Jesus to communicate with God the Father. Even if he did hold this absurd opinion, since God the Father does not even appear in the picture, Jesus could not be depicted as communicating with him. The traditional interpretation of the painting is that Mary on her son’s right is turned away because it is now too late for her to intercede with him.
An interesting paper "Michelangelo and Copernicus: A Note on the Sistine Last Judgement" by Valerie Shrimplin, University of Luton, published in the "Journal of the History of Astronomy" in 2000, brings these two topics together. It suggests that Michelangelo and Pope Clement VII who commissioned the painting were well are of Copernicus’ theory which although not published was widely circulated within intellectual circles and is reflected in the depiction of Christ the light as the center of the universe.
Link to thisVery entertaining article – even the Spellcheck Homophonic Glitches (Google "lodge dock florist").
Even more entertaining are the comments, many of which had me Laughing Out Loud… similar to LOL-ing.
Link to thisIf I remember correctly, wasn’t the prevailing view still the heart being the seat of human thought? And if that is the case, aren’t we assigning modern interpretations to old imagery?
—
Precisely.
If the authors wished, they could test their theory objectively by designing a computer search algorithm to attempt to match any part of the human anatomy with a fuzzy representation in the mural. The art is so massive that the probability of finding *anything* approaches one, even while the probability of finding any *one* thing might be vanishingly low.
This is probability. It’s the same principle that shows the probability of sharing something in common with the woman next to you on your airplane flight is sky-high (bah… terrible.
Here, however, we are probably also being fooled by the brain’s constant search for patterns amongst the randomness. The fact that a similarity exists doesn’t mean it was intentional. Make enough paintings with lines, and one will look like a brain. Enough monkeys at keyboards will eventually reproduce the complete works of George W. Bush.
Link to thisHow would one explain the contradictions in the handling of light, and the fact that the neck is so grotesque, compared to the rest of the art involved? I am curious. Symbols were quite common in art back then, it is only now that we see them everywhere but don’t recognize them anymore as such. Artists of today do similar things. It is difficult to understand (stand-under) the Renaissance mindset, because we have forgotten this type of consciousness. The important thing here is not whether it was intentional or not, but rather the fact that it is there – maybe he was simply inspired or his hands guided in this way by some unconscious impulse. I recommend reading his biography, along with Raphael’s and Leonardo’s: look at their childhoods, families, acquaintances, and how their art came about – something might be revealed about the artists that would help us understand their inner struggles and striving.
Link to thisTwo brazilian researchers, Doctor Gilson Barreto and chemist Marcelo Ganzarolli de Oliveira published in 2004 the book Arte Secreta de Michelangelo: uma lio de anatomia na Capela Sistina, by publisher ARX, that discloses 32 anatomical references hidden on Sistine Chapel ceiling. Different from previous works on the subject, they afirm to have found a pattern Michelangelo would have used to unfold those references to viewers, mainly in four ways: the position of the caracteres, their direction of gaze and the position of their hands (these last two often indicating directly to the hidden illustration), and the lighting of the scene. Perhaps the negative fact about this beautiful publication is that was released exclusively in portuguese, what keeps it distant of worldwide reach.
Link to thisFirst off, I’d like to nitpick the spelling:
" A role of fabric extends up the center of Gods robe in a peculiar manner. "
It’s ROLL of fabric.
Second, Copernicus published his work in 1543; Michelangelo painted this before 1512. I doubt that Michelangelo was inspired by the conflict with Copernicus. Also, there was no "intense conflict between Protestants and Catholics" because Martin Luther didn’t nail his 95 Theses to the church door until 1518. There was no perceived conflict between science and religion at that time, largely because science was only nascent at the time. The Church had always had controversies, but the situation in Rome between 1508 and 1512, when Michelangelo painted this, was not particularly tense. Whatever Michelangelo’s reasons for doing this were, if it indeed be an anatomical diagram, they had nothing to do with any imaginary conflict between science and religion.
Link to thisGort, God is love and love is God. If you live a love-filled life you live a God-filled life, whetrher you admit it or not. Or maybe you think "love" is just another illusion caused by a brain lesion.
Link to thisI can see lovely faces in clouds, the bathroom floor and ink splats!! Does this mean that someone did this, as Leonardo did in the Da Vinci Code?
Link to thisProf. K.A. Efetov from the Ukraine has found that Michelangelo has encoded the external surface of human brain, as well as human genitals(!) in the Sistine Chapel frescoes. The details of the discovery, along with the proof, may be found here:
Link to thishttp://digg.com/news/lifestyle/a_shocking_secret_of_the_sistine_chapel
The article has so many gross errors in it, it shouldn’t be published.
Link to this1. Michelangelo was primarily a sculptor, considered the best sculptor in the world by the time he was 30 years old. This is why he studied anatomy – in the basement of a hospital – not a church graveyard (how ridiculous!).
2. he destroyed his sketches so other artists couldn’t copy him. That was the only secret he was hiding. Raphael was one of the first artists to copy what he saw in the Sistine chapel.
3. The coat behind God in the shape of the human brain – there was a doctor back in 1950 who first discovered that, and it’s common knowledge today. This authors’ claim is not new information.
4. Michelangelo was not a "spiritualist" – and I demand to know the source for this claim. He did not have a strained relationship with the Church. He was a third order Franciscan and fought against the Protestant Reformation. Proof of this can be seen in his Last Judgment painting, also in the Sistine chapel.
5. Here’s something else this author does not know: Scientists analyzed all of Michelangelo’s works – sculpture and painting – and discovered he had represented about 800 different muscle combinations.
The average doctor today learns 600 different muscle combinations.
6. As for the neck featuring a part of the human brain, quite frankly, I didn’t see it. I don’t see a match.
@nashv and bshaheen good reasoning on this article and to the author your effort and in depth comprehension of the painting is a welcome science matter of facts I hope some theologians will not crucify you with words.
Link to this