The Beautiful Brain: The Drawings of Santiago Ramón y Cajal

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Santiago Ramón y Cajal, considered the father of modern neuroscience, was also an exceptional artist. He drew the brain in a way that provided a clarity exceeding that achieved by photographs. Combining scientific and artistic skills to produce drawings with extraordinary scientific and aesthetic qualities, his theory that the brain is composed of individual cells rather than a tangled single web is the basis of neuroscience today.

Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Untitled (self portrait), c.1885.
Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Untitled (self portrait), c.1885.
Santiago Ramón y Cajal, glial cells of the mouse spinal cord, 1899, ink and pencil on paper. Courtesy of Instituto Cajal (CSIC).

Santiago Ramón y Cajal, glial cells of the mouse spinal cord, 1899, ink and pencil on paper. Courtesy of Instituto Cajal (CSIC).

Santiago Ramón y Cajal, glial cells of the cerebral cortex of a child, 1904, ink and pencil on paper. Courtesy of Instituto Cajal (CSIC).

Santiago Ramón y Cajal, glial cells of the cerebral cortex of a child, 1904, ink and pencil on paper. Courtesy of Instituto Cajal (CSIC).

Santiago Ramón y Cajal, endotelioma de la duramadre, 1890, ink and pencil on paper. Courtesy of Instituto Cajal (CSIC).

Santiago Ramón y Cajal, endotelioma de la duramadre, 1890, ink and pencil on paper. Courtesy of Instituto Cajal (CSIC).

About the Exhibition

This traveling exhibition of Cajal’s original drawings was organized by the Weisman Art Museum in collaboration with Drs. Eric Newman, Alfonso Araque, and Janet Dubinsky, neuroscientists at the University of Minnesota and leaders in the field of neuroscience. Dr. Araque was formerly at the Instituto Cajal in Madrid, where Cajal worked and where his drawings are housed.

The Beautiful Brain: The Drawings of Santiago Ramón y Cajal

January 28 through May 21, 2017

Weisman Art Museum

University of Minnesota Minneapolis, MN

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106 maple clear water based finish

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