Study of Hands

This is Leondardo da Vinci's Study of Hands. It was created around 1474 and it depicts the arms, hands and possibly a light sketch of the torso. Da Vinci believed that a person's hands could tell a lot about them and about the kind of mood they are in. The face can be controlled to depict a certain feeling but the hands give a person away. This thought process was shown in some of da Vinci's other works such as the Mona Lisa in which the hands, like the face, give the figure the appearance of being relaxed. According to da Vinci, since the hands don't lie, this was her true mood. This piece shows the artist's interest in hands up close and shows the natural posistioning of the hands. It catches my attention both for the subject manner, which I also find to be interesting and beautiful, and for the artistic style. I find sketches to show the subject manner in a really true way, using shading to show the dimension of the picture and curves of the hand.