The early drawings and prints of Santiago Ramón y Cajal: a visual epistemology of the neurosciences

ABSTRACT

Santiago Ramón y Cajal created histological images using a variety of artistic techniques and methods. In order to contextualise his practice, I have selected a set of drawings and prints of cartilage cells that were used in Cajal's reference handbooks. I then introduce a lithograph representing an inflamed cartilage included in Cajal's first publication. This technique enabled the publishing of graphic information in colour. By reviewing images included in the material that Cajal consulted during his pre-graduate years, I show that he participated in the transnational production of drawing and made use of the printing techniques available to present his research. By analysing a set of original drawings included in Cajal's notebook, Diario de Observaciones, and his first published lithographs of cartilage cells and neurons, I reveal the graphic specificities of his transition from handmade drawings to print representations. Cajal's drawing and lithographing relate directly to artistic interests developed in his youth (López Piñero, 1985), and these skills facilitated the technical transit between notebook and published images, enabling him to formalise his knowledge by including histological results in printed material. A determining factor in Cajal's graphic production relating to the nervous system was his expertise in using chemical silver nitrate, resulting from his interest in photography. Finally, his colour selection is discussed, in order to demonstrate that, even when Cajal drew black lines, he was using black as a specific colour, one he observed through the microscope after staining histological samples

RESUMEN

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