> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://hyperallergic.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# How a Neuroscientist Used Art to Document the Brain
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/science-art-nyu-grey-art-gallery/
- Published: 2018-02-20T22:13:17.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:10:52.000Z
- Description: Two art professors, a neurosurgeon, and a radiologist will discuss ways that artists and scientists can learn from each other.
- Author: Daniel A. Gross
- Tags: Art, Events, Grey Art Gallery, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-18 14:37 (2018)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2018/02/8_cajal_glialcellsofthemouse_1899.jpg)

Drawing of glial cells of a mouse spinal cord, ink and pencil on paper (1899, all images courtesy NYU’s Grey Art Museum)

Modern medicine is more science than art. But a new exhibition at New York University’s Grey Art Gallery, [*The Beautiful Brain*](https://greyartgallery.nyu.edu/exhibition/beautiful-brainthe-drawings-santiago-ramon-y-cajal/sec/images/?ref=hyperallergic.com), examines art that has chronicled and enabled scientific progress. In 1906, the Spanish neuroscientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal won the Nobel Prize in Medicine [for research](https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel%5Fprizes/medicine/laureates/1906/?ref=hyperallergic.com) into the structure of the nervous system. Yet Cajal was also a precise draftsman, and *The Beautiful Brain* suggests that his drawings deserve recognition in their own right.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2018/02/1_cajal_self-portrait_c1885.jpg)

Self portrait of Santiago Ramón y Cajal (c. 1885)

During his career, Cajal created numerous intricate sketches of nerve cells and fibers. As the gallery’s website explains, his drawings “combine cutting-edge scientific knowledge with consummate draftsmanship” — and some “offer much greater clarity than photographs, so much so that they are still in wide use today.” He often used pencil and ink on off-white paper, but in one sketch, he depicted brain cells in earthy red, yellow, and brown shades.

This week, at NYU’s Silver Center, an appropriately [interdisciplinary panel will discuss these drawings](https://greyartgallery.nyu.edu/program/panel-discussionbeauty-truth-truth-beauty-practical-aesthetics-diagnostic-imaging/?ref=hyperallergic.com), along with other images that sit on the boundary of art and science: for example, CAT scans and MRIs that have become the raw materials of recent artworks. In a wide-ranging conversation called “Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty: Practical Aesthetics in Diagnostic Imaging,” two professors of art will join a neurosurgeon and radiologist as they explore the ways that artists and scientists can learn from each other.

**When:** Thursday, February 22, 7pm  
**Where:** NYU Silver Center, Room 300

*More info at* [*NYU’s Grey Art Gallery*](https://greyartgallery.nyu.edu/program/panel-discussionbeauty-truth-truth-beauty-practical-aesthetics-diagnostic-imaging/?ref=hyperallergic.com)*.* 

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2018/02/5_cajal_thepyramidalneuron_1904.jpg)

Drawing of the pyramidal neuron of the cerebral cortex (1904)