Left: painting by Gino Severini, Sea=Dancer, 1914 Source: Peggy Guggenheim Collection
Right: BrainBows: Credit: Jean Livet. Genetically engineering mice so that their brain cells express different combinations of fluorescent colors reveals the brain’s complicated anatomy. In the image round green neurons are interspersed with diffuse support cells called astrocytes. Source: Technology Reveiw
I had the opportunity to visit Venice some years back and fell in love with Sea=Dancer by Severini. This painting spoke to me and I stood in font of it, transfixed for what seemed like hours. Severini, a futurist, painted about dance, dynamism in art. You can imagine movement from his work portrayed here. I wanted to remain in the museum, but my schedule pulled me away. I bought the print and carefully hauled it back across the Atlantic. Neither the print, nor the small facsimile here, do this marvelous painting justice, so if you visit Venice, go to the Guggenheim and see it.
As I read Technology Review the other day, I read about experiments in brain imaging and was once again transfixed by images. An interesting correlation exists to the inner workings of the brain, as shown in the image of brain cells shown on the right, and Sea=Dancer. Severini portrayed a dynamism in Sea=Dancer that we now find, almost a century later, in the brain.
