Huckleberry
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A scrotum would be another appropriate image of the creation of man. It would also be one that would be far more recognizable to people.
Oh, sorry about that. Should I move out of the way?hypatia said:Oh jeez, now all I see is scrotum! Thanks Huckleberry
No, no, it's okay, you can stay right where you are. Well, could you maybe turn to the left a bit?Huckleberry said:Oh, sorry about that. Should I move out of the way?
It is clear that you like the idea, but that doesn't make it the least bit more likely. Find me some quotes where he somehow compares God to the brain. That would make it likely.Huckleberry said:Considering Michelangelo's artistic ability, I think it is likely that he consciously included the brain to accompany the image of God.
So, which is it?Huckleberry said:A scrotum would be another appropriate image of the creation of man. It would also be one that would be far more recognizable to people.
There is no zoobie god. The closest thing we have is ancient hero, Zoobos the Zoobonian. Zoobies look up to him.yomamma said:Was Michealangelo a zoobie? Whos the zoobie god? Is he the same as ours? I have an Idea...
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/michelangelo_buonarroti.htmlAlready at 16, my mind was a battlefield: my love of pagan beauty, the male nude, at war with my religious faith. A polarity of themes and forms - one spiritual, the other earthly.
I cannot live under pressures from patrons, let alone paint.
I live in sin, to kill myself I live; no longer my life my own, but sin's; my good is given to me by heaven, my evil by myself, by my free will, of which I am deprived.
It is better docration when, in painting, some monstrosity is introduced for variety and a relaxation of the sense and to attract the attention of mortal eyes, which at times desire to see that which they have never seen.
What do you despise? By this you are truly known.
Art is a jealous thing; it requires the whole and entire man.
Beauty is the purgation of superfluities.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A681680Scholars and art historians have long recognised that Michelangelo habitually made liberal use of symbolism in both painting and sculpture, and perhaps he was also fond of visual puzzles and humour2. For example, the 'supporting cast', and the accompanying embellishments, (the nude figures, the prophets and sibyls3, the scenes in the medallions4 and spandrels5), which adorn the Sistine Chapel ceiling, have never been satisfactorily interpreted.
Don't you see what a pointless question this is? Even if I answer that it is likely he put symbols in, it says nothing whatever about any particular object or shape in question.Huckleberry said:You don't find it likely that a man known for symbolism in his art would put symbols in his art?
The question is, "Did Michaelangelo intend it to be a brain?"It could be a brain, or an apple, or a heart, or a scrotum, or whatever you want it to be.
The fact it suggested a brain to one viewer is, really, a non-story, and attempts to support the notion Michaelangelo deliberately tried to suggest a brain can't come from indirect trains of logic, like your one about him being homosexual. Something very direct is needed.Maybe it was just put into confuse people. Maybe it is pure coincidence. Unless someone asks the man himself or he wrote it down somewhere then the world may never know for certain.
No, there is no motive, just your speculation that various things could have constituted a motive. Confirmation bias.All I know is that he has the knowledge, the talent, and the motive.
Why even bother entertaining the idea it's a brain? He used the same shape of drapery in the deluge panel. This one is almost certainly just coincidently more brain shaped.It wouldn't stand up in a court of law, but it is enough for me to form a loose opinion, just as many art historians already have.
This train of speculation doesn't mean much unless we know he actually did sketch brains. He may well not have, since they don't show from the ouside. My understanding is that the reason he dissected cadavers was to get a better view of the muscles and bones in order to draw the body more realistically. A search of his sketches should reveal whether he sketched brains or not.Math Is Hard said:My thought is that he may have subsconsciously formed the design in a brain pattern. It was a pattern he had some familiarity with, and given his love of anatomy, he probably spent quite a few hours sketching out this particular organ. Later on, it may have effortlessly emerged as a basic shape for one his great works.
Huckleberry said:I never intended to imply that it definitely was a brain. I was saying that it was likely a brain. And I'm not the only person who can clearly see it. If that wording offends you then let me rephrase. The image in the painting may have been intended to represent a brain. That seems more balanced.
So I take it you don't want that beer? Why zoob?zoobyshoe said:"Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That, if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easily is a bush supposed a bear!"
Theseus
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Act V, scene I
I gave up drinking completely many years ago. It leads to spinning beds and visions of brains on the ceiling.Huckleberry said:So I take it you don't want that beer? Why zoob?
It has been drapery for 500 years. Someone notices it looks brain-like and now it's definitely a brain? Is it a sheep brain or a human brain?Integral said:Michelangelo painted god in a brain, that is as obvious as a painting on the ceiling.
Sure, he could have put something in his art that expressed one opinion or another, but nothing about this brain thing adds up. What is the message? Find where he said something to the effect he thinks God is a figment of the human mind.I feel very comfortable with the idea of him sending a hidden (in that time) message to the Church.
I'm not getting details of the painting when I click. Just essays about the panel I click on.Huckleberry said:Here is a site that shows the sistine chapel. Many of the pictures can be selected individually.
Which of these other photos depict god?
No, they're brainy in the same way the one in question is. The most interesting of these, I see in my book, depicts Zechariah, (and not some apostle as I thought.)Just out of curiousity, do the other brainy pictures perhaps resemble fish brains or reptile brains when God created those things?
Meaning?Michelangelo seems to have been religious all his life, but he was also a neoplatonist.
I'm with Zoob on this. You guys all have brain on the brain. I do not see enough evidence of this implication. Besides, something like this is more a trademark of a da Vinci than a Mikey.Integral said:Zoobie,
You are either trolling. blind or in serious denial. Michelangelo painted god in a brain, that is as obvious as a painting on the ceiling. I feel very comfortable with the idea of him sending a hidden (in that time) message to the Church.
Why does this bother you?
I don't think Moonbear thinks it was intended to look like a brain, she pointed out that it looks more like a sheep brain than a human brain. I don't think it was intended to look like a brain either, it wouldn't make any sense.Adrian Baker said:Our resident brain expert moonbear thinks it is a brain, as do the biologists I work with. One of these biologists is a very strong Christian but his reading of it is that the fundamental basis of Christianity is that; either God is only in the mind of man (ie imagined), or that man is in the mind of God (ie created by him).
That is surely THE fundamental question for all Christians? Whatever Michaelangelo's beliefs, he would surely have been aware of that conundrum. Perhaps that was why he put God in the brain...
Incidentally, re: Is it really a brain... Don't you Americans have a saying that if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck.. it is a duck!?
Evo said:I don't think it was intended to look like a brain either, it wouldn't make any sense.
As I was looking up more on this last night, including where the idea originated that this is a brain on the ceiling, as far as I can locate, this started with an article in JAMA (an article on something mostly for entertainment is common in their journal). The brain-like shape was first noticed by an anatomist or physician after it was cleaned. So, the predisposition to see a part of the anatomy in the painting was already there.Gokul43201 said:I'm with Zoob on this. You guys all have brain on the brain. I do not see enough evidence of this implication. Besides, something like this is more a trademark of a da Vinci than a Mikey.
I agree, artists do strange things sometimes. I wonder what Michelangelo would have said if someone told him, "hey, that looks like a sheep brain!"Adrian Baker said:It might not to me and you, but then we aren't fantastically talented artists, who practise disection, and get comissions for the church paintings!
I went to the National Gallery in London with an Art expert and the information stored in each picture is fantastic! Portrait paintings have so many 'clues' and stories painted in that the average person today can't see. "The Ambassador" painting by Holbein (the one with the distorted skull in it) is awesome for the amount of info in it. Have a look at this site.
http://phs.prs.k12.nj.us/~ewood/virtualmuseum/Ambassadors/Ambassadors.html
It is pictures like this that make me think that an artist of Michaelangelo's calibre would not have painted a 'brain-like' object by mistake - I mean, the guy was one of the greatest artists ever!
I have no christian/atheist argument here to push, I'm just intrigued by the picture and would like to understand it more.
One of the fun things about art is that we can also take home messages and see things in it that are unique to our personal perspective. In other words, things that are not intended or seen by the artist can still strike resonance with something personal to the viewer.Adrian Baker said:I went to the National Gallery in London with an Art expert and the information stored in each picture is fantastic!
Not necessarily, especially if he didn't see it as a brain. What is more noticeable to me about the image, and something to contemplate, is that most of the bodies are entirely contained within that drapery backdrop. And, clearly, having God as the largest "person" in that image is significant; this is a common theme in art, to draw more significant people or objects proportionally larger than everything else in the painting. It is of course also significant that God is reaching out of the backdrop, not confined. But what interests me more is that there are other people's feet sticking out of the boundaries of the backdrop. Why feet? Why not keep all the other people neatly confined within the boundaries of the drapery backdrop when that would fit with the crowded appearnace inside this part of the painting? Are these people kicking out from their boundaries? Maybe like a baby kicking out from its blanket, no longer being swaddled by a parent but kicking out for independence? It sure doesn't add any form of symmetry, unless it provides a continuity with the other paintings surrounding it...do the feet point toward another painting, as a way to visually draw the viewer and connect them from one component of the overall painting to another to make the work seem more cohesive?It is pictures like this that make me think that an artist of Michaelangelo's calibre would not have painted a 'brain-like' object by mistake - I mean, the guy was one of the greatest artists ever!
Not at all the same thing...that's a rat brain, not a sheep brain, in Domenichino's work. The arm out front is even an olfactory bulb.Evo said:I agree, artists do strange things sometimes. I wonder what Michelangelo would have said if someone told him, "hey, that looks like a sheep brain!"![]()
What do you think of this later painting by Domenichino?
It does look like a rat brain.Moonbear said:Not at all the same thing...that's a rat brain, not a sheep brain, in Domenichino's work. The arm out front is even an olfactory bulb.![]()
Oh, I'm so glad we have this thread. I'm going to have so much fun finding hidden brains next time I visit an art museum!Evo said:It does look like a rat brain.![]()
This is my very point. The saying is "If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck." This alleged "brain" neither walks nor quacks.Adrian Baker said:Incidentally, re: Is it really a brain... Don't you Americans have a saying that if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck.. it is a duck!?
Or, people can meditate on paintings till they hear the sound of one brain quacking.Moonbear said:Oh, I'm so glad we have this thread. I'm going to have so much fun finding hidden brains next time I visit an art museum!It'll be like a whole day of playing "Where's Waldo?"
![]()
zoobyshoe said:Moonbear:
Michelangelo. The Prophet Zechariah. - Olga's Gallery
Address:http://www.abcgallery.com/M/michelangelo/michelangelo49.html
For full effect, print this out and turn it sideways with the guy facing down. I think it is more "brainey" than the other one.
You're right, that's definitely more of a liver.Non-brainey God:
Creation of the Sun, Moon, and Plants (detail) by MICHELANGELO di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni
Address:http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/m/mi...s/08_3ce8a.html
This one is actually kind of spooky if you print it and look at it sideways. The drapery really suggests brain fissures and sulci. It has a much better developed occipital/cerebellar area than the other one.Moonbear said:I can see more than one orientation for a brain in that one (haven't really printed it out though, just mentally rotating the image).
Michelangelo's mind
Michelangelo considered the human body as the most important metaphor of divine order. His profound knowledge of human anatomy which he acquired by performing dissections is reflected in his sculptural works as well as in his paintings.
He was also heavily influenced by humanist and Neoplatonic ideas which appear in his writings and poems of that time and believed that sublime beauty in art can be produced only when the hands obey the intellect.
Neoplatonism enjoyed resurgence during the Renaissance and this philosophy is very present in Michelangelo's art. The Neoplatonists believed that man being the link between God and the world was the element that kept the universe together. They implied that the physical world came into being as a result of the soul emerging from the Intelligible.
Artists like Michelangelo who believed in the divine origin of art and of the interaction between physical beauty and intellect, attempted to touch or stir the soul through images of beauty. When the eye sees the perfectly harmonized objects that would awaken the soul, the object seen is considered as something divine.
Michelangelo was neoplatonist. Neoplatonists believe that the intelligible was the divine mind. This would give meaning to the image of a brain in Michelangelo's work. I would interpret it to mean a gift of divine intelligence from the One.To view the Renaissance solely from this perspective, however, would be misleading. Burckhardt also emphasized the fact that the philosophical outlook of the Renaissance, in many instances, attempted to Christianize pagan ideologies. This is particularly true of Marsilio Ficino and the Neoplatonic Academy. In the Renaissance, Neoplatonism enjoyed a resurgence in popularity, and was not thought of as being in opposition to Christianity. This is nowhere more clearly seen than in the works of the greatest artist of the age, Michelangelo Buonarroti.
Neoplatonism, as a school of thought, had its origins in the work of Plotinus in the third century. Plotinus argued that there were three hypostases: the One, the Intelligible, and the World Soul. The One was the highest, most perfect realm. The One was completely undifferentiated and, therefore, nothing could be said about it. It was, then, even beyond being; the One transcended all categories which could be applied to it. The other two hypopstases "emanated" from the One. They were not created, but rather, came into being as a result of a corrupt desire to be other than the One. The Intelligible was the Divine mind for Plotinus, and took its form by reflecting back on the One. The realm of the Intelligible was populated by divine ideas, which were the perfect exemplars of sensible objects. The physical world came into being as a result of the emanation of Soul from the Intelligible. Some souls become corrupted and associate with matter. Matter was a complete negation, neither good nor evil in itself, but utterly formless. Soul informs matter, and makes it what it is. Matter, while not evil in itself, is, however, the source of evil. Being bound up with matter corrupts the soul; some souls forget their divine origins and become too concerned with sensible things. . All souls, however, eventually seek to return to the One. Plotinus argued that the soul can become reunited with the One through contemplation. The life of the philosopher, for Plotinus, was the best attempt to free oneself from the bonds of matter and achieve a vision of the One.
[/URL]Evo said:What do you think of this later painting by Domenichino? http://gallery.euroweb.hu/art/d/domenich/adam_eve.jpg
Hyp, can you paste Zechariah into the thread here sideways with his face down:hypnagogue said:Nah, it's Paul Reiser all the way.
zoobyshoe said:Hyp, can you paste Zechariah into the thread here sideways with his face down:
Address:http://www.abcgallery.com/M/michelangelo/michelangelo49.html