Another hand gesture you will frequently see in religious art is a figure (usually a Pope or bishop) pointing upwards with their index and middle finger. This is somewhat unnatural since you would generally point with your index finger alone. The use of two fingers represents the divine and human natures of Christ.<p>A few examples:<p><a href="https://i2.wp.com/catholicism.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2000/12/Saint_Ambrose_of_Milan.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://i2.wp.com/catholicism.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/fil...</a><p><a href="https://jimmyakin.com/wp-content/uploads/st-augustine-and-four-states-of-a-fraternity.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://jimmyakin.com/wp-content/uploads/st-augustine-and-fo...</a><p><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Urban_VIII#/media/File%3ADankaerts-Historis-9264.tif" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Urban_VIII#/media/File%...</a><p>It shows up in formal photographs of the Pope in the 20th century:<p><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ch3pBw3dBY0/WeG5Oo9_k1I/AAAAAAAACw8/OwKF4oCfvekKvukHBKJtILG26slM7pDuACLcBGAs/s1600/Papst_Pius_XII.%252C_Kr%25C3%25B6nung_1939JS.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ch3pBw3dBY0/WeG5Oo9_k1I/AAAAAAAAC...</a><p>And the TV series The Young Pope even included this gesture as a detail: <a href="https://youngpopesart.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/vlcsnap-1204-09-21-12h53m45s1382.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://youngpopesart.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/...</a>
My favorite secret hand gesture in a painting is in the portrait of the Duchess of Alba by Goya.
<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Francisco-de-Goya-Duchess-of-Alba-1796-1797-Oil-on-canvas-2103-A-1493-cm-Inscribed_fig1_331348277" rel="nofollow">https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Francisco-de-Goya-Duches...</a><p>The text on the floor that she is pointing to reads 'solo Goya' (only Goya) and was not discovered until the painting was cleaned in modern times.<p>As to it's significance, draw your own conclusions.
From the publication: “The speculation that the hand gesture herein presented is a freemasonry’s conveyed code is fascinating, but it is hard to accept.”<p>This sentence concluded a very short paragraph that apparently aimed to explore whether the hand sign could have a Masonic meaning. But instead of giving any explanation for their conclusion, the authors merely postulate the above without any given reasoning. I’m surprised to find this in what appears to aim to be a scientific analysis. Even more so would it surprise me if any conscious reader found this conclusion satisfactory.<p>Any thoughts?
> hands were as important a focus of attention as the face was, because they were the only other visible area of the body<p>Huh, I had always assumed the reason that they were featured in renaissance art was the trend of depicting subjects with a sort of realism, combined with hands tending to be a more difficult feature for artists to master; so a good depiction of hands showcases the skill of the artist and enhances the work’s merit as a status symbol for its owner.<p>I guess both could be true. Hands are an important focus of attraction in the modern day tbf.
> unnatural hand position<p>Is it really unnatural? Interestingly, as a right-handed, the two middle fingers
of my right hand tend to effortlessly group together; this feels noticeably less true on my left hand, but still observable if I try to relax it.<p>The peculiar "mission tile" (half-cylindrical) flexibility of the palm region, encouraged by writing for example, may foster this grouping.<p>It's a bit surprising for the article not to address potential anatomical causes.
Note that "mudras" have significant meanings in Hinduism, Jainism & Buddhism. Mudras used in Indian dances convey feelings or elements of story etc. Also used in yoga. And mudras are not just hand gestures but also facial expressions, eye movements and so on.<p>Though there does not seem to be any connection of mudras with European paintings. There were cultural links between India and the Greco-Roman world in 2nd-1st century BCE around the time of Indo-Greek kingdom (northwest of the current India) but seems unlikely that would have such an influence centuries later.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudra" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudra</a>
The only two plausible explanations to me are either that <i>artists</i> conventionally drew hands like this (for religious, artistic or other reasons) or that artists' <i>subjects</i> conventionally posed like this, for a similar variety of reasons, or because the artist told them to.<p>The article helpfully rules out a third explanation, an "epidemic of syndactyly", but doesn't make a strong decision between the other two. It seems to lean towards this being a quirk of the artists, but it could do with a quantitative study: if artist A painted subject A like this, what happened when artist A portrayed other subjects, or other artists portrayed A?
400 years later, this mysterious hand gesture would resurface in the character designs of Capcom's Mega Man / Rockman series of video games.<p><a href="https://themmnetwork.com/2010/03/18/the-great-mega-man-finger-phenomenon/" rel="nofollow">https://themmnetwork.com/2010/03/18/the-great-mega-man-finge...</a>
i think papers like this reveal the benefits of domain-specific methodologies. a scientific paper is a bad choice for historiography.<p>art historical texts are usually much more concerned with close reading of artworks to establish syncretic pathways of artistic convention. art writers are usually unconcerned with null hypothesis and burden of proof. the authors here had no real claim about history or any interesting reading of artwork. i couldn't imagine something like this being disseminated in an arts journal or publication-- there just isn't enough time spent with the methods of art history, i.e close readings of the examples presented, primary source inclusion, historiographic narrative, formal analysis, etc.<p>i wish i could provide a counterexample, but my work is on american conceptual sculpture, not renaissance art. i think the last very good text i read on the renaissance was james hall's book on michelangelo's anatomy published some years ago.
The famous Arnolfini Portrait [0] by Jan van Eyck also has quite a bit of symbolism depicted in the hands of the portrait subjects.<p>[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnolfini_Portrait#Interpretation_and_symbolism" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnolfini_Portrait#Interpretat...</a>
The knife in the hand and the knife-like hand:<p><a href="https://cdn.kastatic.org/ka-perseus-images/82e1c6954dc87273a8484c732eba8829d1297874.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://cdn.kastatic.org/ka-perseus-images/82e1c6954dc87273a...</a>
> Finally, there is no letter or religious gesture, Hebrew or otherwise, similar to the splayed hand.<p>Isn’t there? Not including the thumb, it looks like the letter shin. Of course, the Vulcan salute also famously makes the shin letter (but, includes the thumb).
"During the Renaissance period, hands were as important a focus of attention as the face was, because they were the only other visible area of the body."<p>[Example painting is a Titian with a naked Mary Magdalene]
I love that there's a section for conflicts of interest.<p>Would have been interesting to see a disclosure for a pharma company working on syndactyly or a disclosure that the authors belong to some secret society.
> It is an unnatural position of one or both hands in which the third and fourth digits are held tight together, as if almost fused, resembling syndactyly, and the second and fifth fingers are separated from the central ones.<p>My favorite example is in the Flammarion engraving: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flammarion_engraving" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flammarion_engraving</a>
Was not sure but had to look up a definition.
"Syndactyly is a condition wherein two or more digits are fused together."<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syndactyly" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syndactyly</a><p>I thought maybe it was some sort of condition that caused finger to contract like that.
It's just a matter of style. People copy the styles that they identify themselves with/aspire to. Artist copy each other, black kids copy 50cent, white kids copy jake paul, gay men copy each others feminine affectations. Once you notice it, it's everywhere.
One of my aspirational hobbies is designing Apple Vision Pro games and interfaces that trick people into unwittingly making embarrassing hand gestures in public.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsGnqf3CUW8" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsGnqf3CUW8</a>
I just wanted to add something I didn't see mentioned in the article or the discussion. In the Christian tradition, figures are often portrayed with their pinky and ring fingers curled up, while the thumb, index, and middle fingers are extended. This is done to symbolize the holy trinity.
Well, faces and hands are <i>still</i> considered important. There’s a saying that if you get the face and hands right, you can get away with anything.<p>Also common advice for artists is to group the middle and ring fingers together. It just looks better and they kind of tend to do so naturally anyway.
I really like this article. Many humanities articles are political or opaque.<p>But simple articles like this add to knowledge in a fun way. I hope this becomes more common with more open journals.<p>Not sure if Acta Biomed is open.
The spread fingers make three points on a fibonacci curve. It is just the most aesthetically pleasant gesture. The artists were always in pursuit of beauty and this is what it is.
Of all the hypotheses they considered, they seem to have missed the obvious one: Cosimo I de' Medici is Eastside and Jesus, God and Mary Magdalene are Westside.
“ It should be considered an artistic device or a symbolic hallmark without any conveyed meaning rather than a true pathologic depiction of syndactyly.”<p>Well, that was tax money well spent. Is this actually considered science now? Is this what (art) historians actually do? Speculate a bit and then say “well, it probably was <i>something</i>”?
I'm surprised the paper doesn't entertain the notion that some things look cool, artists copy one another, and trends simply start like that naturally.<p>I mean, it's not like Corinthian style columns have a hidden meaning. They look nice and provide artists with a great default.
Great, now I can't stop thinking about what I do with my hands all day. Thanks.<p>But for real, this seems like selection bias. Is combination of fingers touching actually any more or less common than any others?
This reminds me of Korea's progressive feminist hand gesture [0].
For some reason, a video about Korea's gender war [1] ended up in my YouTube recommendation and somehow I decided to watch the 47-minute video (and another 110 minutes for part 2)...<p>Basically, aggressive feminist groups use a hand gesture as a disrespect against men (or misogynists), but the gesture is so general and anti-feminism is so large in Korea, that a lot of people mistook the otherwise normal picture in anime/games as a hidden attack against men. It caused riots and several people lost their jobs or sometimes the entire projects/companies went down.<p>I think it's not a good idea to associate a very natural gesture with horrible intentions...<p>[0] <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/02/business/south-korea-business-gender-war-intl-hnk-dst/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/02/business/south-korea-busi...</a>
[1] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Im4YAMWK74" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Im4YAMWK74</a>