Medical Experts perceive new anatomical images in Sistine Chapel painting

Two neuroanatomy experts claimed recently that Michelangelo left secret anatomical images in his paintings on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

4th bay of the Sistine Chapel ceiling depicting Adam and Eve's expulsion from Eden.

The experts, Ian Suk and Rafael Tamargo, are from the John Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland.
They wrote about their findings in the scientific journal Neurosurgery, the Huffington Post said.
According to Neurosurgery, in his final stages of painting the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo painted four frescoes along the longitudinal apex of the vault.  This would complete a series of nine central panels that depicted scenes from the book of Genesis.
Suk and Tamargo contend that the artist concealed a neuronanatomic structure in the final panel of this series, called “Separation of Light From Darkness.” Here, he painted a ventral view of the brainstem, according to Neurosurgery.
Suk and Tamargo noted that Michelangelo was a master anatomist who dissected cadavers many times—aside from being an artist.
“We propose that Michelangelo, a deeply religious man and an accomplished anatomist, intended to enhance the meaning of this iconographically critical (final) panel and possibly document his anatomic accomplishments by concealing this sophisticated neuroanatomic rendering within the image of God,” they wrote in Neurosurgery.
The experts were not the first to make such contentions.  In 1990, physician Frank Meshberger, in the Journal of the American Medical Association said the central panel which showed God Creating Adam, contained a perfect anatomical illustration of the human brain in cross section, according to the Huffington Post.
The same report says Suk and Tamargo mention a precise depiction of the human spinal cord and the brain stem including the eyes and optic nerve.  This is seen in the chest and throat area of Michelangelo’s painting of God, which is situated directly above the altar.
It took Michelangelo four years to complete the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, starting from the chapel’s entrance and ending just 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, according to the Huffington Post.
The anatomical irregularities in the artist’s depiction of God’s neck in this final panel, plus discordant lighting which seems to spotlight the neck had long been cited by art critics and historians, the Huffington Post said.
This has given rise to speculations as to why a master artist with such knowledge of anatomy such as Michelangelo would so carelessly bungle his depiction of the image of God, particularly at the throat—and spotlight it–above the altar, the Huffington Post reports.
Suk and Tamargo contend that the distortion is intentional, as it is the only panel with such distortion and irreconcilable lighting.  This is because the precise features of the human brain are concealed in the distortion.
The Huffington Post also said that a human spinal cord can be detected in a roll of fabric that extends from the center of the robe of God in the painting.  The cloth is bunched up and in the folds the spinal cord ascends to the brain stem that is hidden in the distortion on the artist’s image of God’s neck.
The way the robe twists is also unnatural to how the fabric would be normally draped.  The crumpled robe also reveals optic nerves from two eyes, which approximate Leonardo Da Vinci’s illustration of 1478.  Da Vinci and Michelangelo were contemporaries and acquainted with each other’s work, the Huffington Post said.
Other scholars have seen a kidney in Michelangelo’s painting, and ponder over the possibility that he was preoccupied with such because he had kidney stones.  There is however the contention that the images seen in the Sistine Chapel painting may have been perceived in the same way as one would perceive a Rorschach test, the Huffington Post said.
Meaning to say, anatomists would be inclined to see anatomy.  Others may build on this and wonder if such hidden images would contain secret messages.  Symbolism is used whether in the literary or other forms of art, and particularly in paintings.
Historians would note that this was a time when Protestants had clashed with Catholics, and scientists with the church—particularly the monk Copernicus who said the earth revolved around the sun, a new idea not yet acceptable at that time.
Hence, added impetus for Michelangelo to possibly conceal these anatomical images.   Michelangelo did lend his own face to Saint Bartholomew’s body (the saint was skinned alive) and to the severed head of Holofernes, who was seduced and beheaded by Judith, according to the Huffington Post.
And while we may never know if what is perceived is what is seen–and whether what seems to be recognized is adequately interpreted to be a secret message from the artist–all must agree that Michelangelo’s work is provocative and awe inspiring, the Huffington Post says.