DRAWINGS OF TWO CLOSED HANDS MANUAL

DRAWINGS OF TWO CLOSED HANDS MANUAL

Specifically in the case of the figure of Christ, the symbolism associated with manual gestures is more complex. However, this hand gesture has even more levels of meaning that deserve to be taken into account. Clearly enough He, more than anyone, has something important to say, right? The meaning of this hand gesture, as associated with classical oratory, is also the source of the iconographic motif showing Christ raising His hand in the very same attitude of a classic Roman or Greek speaker. This tradition was so rooted in ancient Rome that the gesture can be seen even in the oldest surviving Annunciation image. That is, it was the gesture that preceded the exordium of their discourse. For example, in icons of the Annunciation, the Archangel Gabriel is generally shown with his hand raised in the same way Roman rhetoricians raised theirs when indicating they were about to start an important sentence. It is not surprising that the first Christian icon painters used this repertoire of hand gestures in their paintings of Christ, saints and angels. So we need a bit of help to decipher them. That is, they were quite common and understood by almost everybody. The gestures accompanying the oratory, of course, were a matter of public knowledge at the time.

Have you ever wondered, while looking at religious icons, why the figures of Christ and the saints make certain hand gestures? Each gesture has a specific meaning, but it’s no wonder we can’t always understand them: they’re “written” in Greek! Classical Greeks and Romans developed a well-established, quite complex hand-gesture code, which was used by both orators and rhetoricians alike, when they were giving speeches in the agora or the Senate, during their private addresses, or even in the classroom. A classical Greco-Roman rhetorical tradition survives in Christian iconography

Drawings of two closed hands