Drawing Hands: Henry Moore

Yesterday’s post featuring drawings by Kathe Kollwitz introduced the idea of hands as expressive elements within a drawing. I was so excited about the idea of hands doing the talking for a face in a drawing that I made a class to study expressive hands and heads, and I started collecting examples. Some I collected because I appreciated the rendering. Some I collected because the artist surpassed drawing and the art reads as pure expression. I collected so many I’m sending them in installments. This is Part 2 of…. several.

Today is a repost of hands drawn by sculptor Henry Moore. I value drawings by sculptors because they have something in them that’s not commonly found in drawings by artists with a 2D focus. Notice how in these studies of his own hands, Moore doesn’t solely use line to describe visual experiences like light and shadow, he also uses line to describe sculptural experiences like volume, mass, weight, texture, and contour. See how the flesh looks soft, squishy or plump or saggy, while the fingernails or areas where bone is just under the surface looks more rigid. These drawings are physical.

Moore drew hands to describe the aged body. He made a series of drawings of his own hands when he was eighty-one and suffering from ill-health, and he did more of Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin’s gnarled joints. ‘Hands can convey so much’ he said, ‘they can beg or refuse, take or give, be open or clenched, show content or anxiety. They can be young or old, beautiful or deformed’.

“Moore believed his prints were part of a larger history of sculpture and painting, in which artists have shown feelings through their portrayal of hands.” (Source: Tate. Previously posted on V. Notes August 26, 2016)

Ruthie teaches art classes at Seattle Artist League. Click here to sign up for drawing, painting, pottery, and more!