Letter: Brains, not butterflies

TIM HILTON's review of the Jerwood exhibition (Culture, 4 October) focuses on the prizewinner Madeleine Strindberg's Medulla - Bruised. The illustration of the picture is captioned: "Flights of fancy: Madeleine Strindberg's Medulla - Bruised convinced the Jerwood Prize judges. But what's with the butterflies?" The truth is they are not butterflies but very thin transverse sections of the medulla oblongata and part of the pons (of the human brain). No doubt it is the purple colouring of the sections which is referred to in the title's "bruised". I think Mr Hilton is not the only critic to miss this anatomical point.

G P McMULLIN

Winchelsea, East Sussex