Week 5 - Episode 29 - Getting creative with hands

I hope this week has given you a new appreciation for two incredible tools you use daily: your hands - and how they’re used in art to give direction and meaning.

If you’d like to dive deeper into this fascinating topic here are some suggestions for weekend projects.

Looking at art

• Observe how hand depiction has changed through periods, for example the Middle Ages. grab screenshots and create your own ‘Medieval Art Hand’ timeline.

• (Re)visit a museum or online art collection and focus on hands doing a particular thing. For example pointing, blessing, praying - or holding a particular object, like a sword. Again, take pictures or screenshots to create your own mini collection (the Rijksstudio, one of my favourite online art resources, has this function built-in).

• Look at how some of your favourite artists, photographer or others, treat hands. Do they play an important part in their pictures?

• Look at studies of hands by different artists and marvel at how many shapes they can take and how hard it is to draw or paint them well

Cheers! Detail of A Militiaman Holding a Berkemeyer, Known as the ‘Merry Drinker’, Frans Hals, c. 1628 - c. 1630, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Creating your own work

• Revisit Tim Booth’s hand project and think about the important people in your life. How would you portray them through their hands? This can be a great start of a new photography project - as well as an interesting conversation to have with those close to you. How do they see themselves? And what does this mean about how they would like to be portrayed through their hands?

• At the start of this week we looked at how hand prints say ‘I was here’. But there’s another much loved visual theme which says ‘Someone was here’: lost gloves. From now on, keep your eye out for lost gloves and start creating your own collection.

• Zoom in on hands through macro photography. Create close-ups of hand palms and make visible what amazing landscapes they are. You can even consider superimpose portraits of the palm-owners on these for a double-layered portrait.

There’s lots more to be observed and created around this amazing topic, so we may very well revisit it later on. But this should give you plenty to do for now.

Have fun with hands this weekend and do share your creations on Twitter or Instagram, using the hashtag #kramerseye. 

Listen to today’s podcast

Week 5 - Episode 28 - Life in Your Hands

Yesterday we looked at the sometimes secret signalling we do with our hands through the way we hold objects, tap tables, etc. Today we’re focusing on a different kind of tell: what your hands passively give away about you.

Hands are identifiers not only through our fingerprints - they can tell stories about how we live and have lived our lives. 

For example, they can hint at: 

• the kind of work do you do, or have you done;

• your social status;

• what do you like to do in your spare time;

• how important grooming is to you;

• how long you have lived, and the kind of life you have led so far.

Many photographers have focused on hands to tell stories about their owners. Yesterday we looked at Irvin Penn’s clever hand portrait of Miles Davis. 

Today, take a moment to check out Tim Booth’s work. This UK Photographer has created an entire project and book with portraits of people who ‘work with their hands’. Hand portraits, that is. And this doesn’t just include musicians, labourers, sportspeople: he’s also done a moving hand portrait of a female airline pilot. You can view a short video on this impressive project here.

Tim Booth - Portrait of the photographer’s grandmother, Molly Booth

Today, become a ‘hand-reader’.

Look at your own hands. What do they say about you? What about the hands of those dearest and nearest to you? 

Then, start Sherlocking other people’s hands. What can you guess about someone’s life from looking at them?

If you can, ask to take a picture of their hands, and see whether they can corroborate your story - or whether you were completely off. 

Share your hand portraits and stories Twitter or Instagram, using the hashtag #kramerseye.

Listen to today’s podcast

Week 5 - Episode 27 - Hands that speak Volumes

Hands are not only infinitely useful for basic survival, like grabbing our dinner - they also serve as signals in social situations. 

People twiddle their thumbs. Tap the table nervously. Give a thumbs up - or “the finger”. They rest their weary head in their hands, or clasp it in despair.

Imagine Rodin’s thinker without hands: impossible.

Rodin’s Thinker, The Louvre, photograph by AndrewHorne, source: Wikipedia

Similarly, in Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” above, the elongated hands are essential in amplifying despair. 

Our hands give us away - they show who we love, loathe, muse; how we feel (jittery or relaxed). That’s why we love holding stuff in our hands, whether it be a cigarette or mobile phone. It makes it harder to ‘read’ us, to know that we’re terrified or maybe head over heels in love with the person sitting next to us. 

“Hangover - the Drinker” - Portrait of Suzanne Valadon, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec 1887-88 - Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge

In most portraits, the hands have something to do or rest on: people who aren’t actors simply don’t know what to do with them otherwise.

The brilliant photographer Irving Penn was very well aware of this. In most of his portraits, the sitters’ hands are given something to do.

We see Salvador Dali, legs wide spread, holding his knees.

There’s Jean Cocteau managing to very elegantly have a hand in his pocket, whilst holding a cigarette in the other.

Richard Avedon covering his face with his hand, leaving a gap for his all-important photographer’s eye.

And Penn’s portrait of Miles Davis leave out the face entirely in favour of the all-telling hand: all we see is Davis’ , pressing an imaginary valve on a trumpet. 

Today, observe how people use their hands - and how artist use depiction of hands to express how their subjects feel.

See how their hands tell stories - whether they want to share them or not.

Share your hands that speak volumes on Twitter or Instagram, using the hashtag #kramerseye.

Listen to today’s podcast

Week 5 - Episode 26 - Only the Fool looks at the Finger

There’s a Chinese proverb saying: “When a sage points at the moon, the fool looks at the finger.”

Today we are going to be those fools, in a way. Because pointed fingers are a clever tool used in art, for example to give direction to a composition - and that’s what we’re focusing on today.

The pointed finger can be used simply to point towards something inside the frame the artist wants to draw our attention to. As in Poussin’s “Et in arcadia ego” pictured above, for example, where the artist draws our attention to the inscription on the tomb as a memento mori.

Or they can point outside the frame, is in the famous “School of Athens” by Raphel, Here, Plato is pointing towards the heavens and Aristotle gestures towards the earth - presumable to illustrate the different focus in their philosophy. 

The School of Athens, Raffaello_Sanzio_da_Urbino, Vatican Museums, rome

When the finger is pointing towards you, something extraordinary happens. All of a sudden, your are in a relationship to the work. You’re being singled out. You can really feel this - tension is heightened and it demands a reaction on your part. 

In this surprisingly modern looking painting by Joseph Ducreux you feel ridiculed by the figure (a self-portrait of the painter) pointing at you. 

Portrait de l'artiste sous les traits d'un moqueur, ca. 1793, Musée de la Révolution française

And pointing a finger towards the viewer was of course used very cleverly to recruit people for the army in both 1st and second world wars. 

J. M. Flagg, 1917, based on the original British Lord Kitchener poster of three years earlier. 

Today, be the fool that looks at - or for - the pointing fingers.

Browse through online art collections, like Google Arts & Culture or the brilliant Rijksstudio, and capture details of pointing fingers. 

Observe how they’re used in compositions and share your finds on Twitter or Instagram, using the hashtag #kramerseye.

Listen to today’s podcast