Lefties in Art?

What’s the deal with all these lefties in art school? They only make up about 10% of the population but they’re swarming all over our nations art school campuses. It’s becoming a problem. I mean they’ve embedded themselves into our art culture and the roots run deeper than you might think. Have you ever heared of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Albrecht Dürer, M.C. Escher, or Hans Holbein? Guess what. They were all left handed! That’s right. Almost ALL of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were left handed. Scared? You should be.

Let’s get to the guts of the issue. Your brain. Your brain as a whole is split right down the middle, giving you two sides of a brain, or hemispheres. The hemispheres each control certain things more than the opposing hemisphere, and people almost always have a dominant side. Everyone uses their brain differently or not at all, and the differences range from person to person, and even from male to female. Studies have shown women to have more symmetrical brains than men, and that women’s communication skills are higher than men’s while men tend to be better with spatial reasoning and lifting weights, although the weights are unrelated. See how my communication is starting to falter here? I‘m a dude. So, lets get back on track.

So what does this have to do with creepy left handed people in art? Well this comes down to the dominant hemisphere for each person. Studies have shown while the left hemisphere tends to be the seat of language and processes in a logical and sequential order, the right is much more visual and creative and excels in art and music. So if you’re all artsy fartsy then your right hemisphere is most likely the dominant. Also the left of the brain controls the right side of the body, while the right controls the left. So here’s the thing with lefties. The left side of your body is controlled by you right hemisphere, then lefties have a close personal relationship with their right hemisphere, which is the hemisphere that excels in music and art! Snap! This doesn’t of course mean ALL left handed people must be artistic. Like I mentioned earlier, everyone’s brains are different, and there are plenty of artistic right handed people out there and according to this they would be pulling from their left hemisphere. Nevertheless it is a strange connection.

-Randall Fischer


References

http://frank.mtsu.edu/~studskl/hd/hemis.html
(Differences Between Left and Right Hemisphere)

http://www.dana.org/news/cerebrum/detail.aspx?id=656
(Left Hand, Left Brain: The Plot Thickens)

http://www.csulb.edu/~pamela/readings/Gender_Identity.pdf
(Brain Study Focuses on Gender Identity)

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/split.html
(Neuroscience For Kids)