Fig. 21 (b).
The treatment of the hand illustrates the process of artistic evolution, the movement from a bold symbolism in the direction of a more life-like mode of representation. Thus one of the earliest and rudest devices I have met with, though in a few cases only, is that of drawing strokes across the line of the arm by way of digital symbols. Here we have merely a clumsy attempt to convey the abstract idea of branching or bifurcation. These cross-strokes are commonly continued upwards so that the whole visible part of the arm becomes tree-like. It is an important step from this to the drawing of twig-like lines which bifurcate with the line of the arm (Fig. 21 [(a)] and [(b)]).
It is a still more significant advance in the process of evolution when the digital bifurcations are placed rightly, being concentrated in a bunch-like arrangement at the extremity of the arm-line. Here, again, various modes of treatment disclose themselves, marking stages in the development of the artist.
The simplest device would seem to be to draw one short line on either side of the termination of the arm-line so as to produce a rude kind of bird’s foot form. This may be done clumsily by drawing a stroke across at right angles to the line of the arm, or better by two independent strokes making acute angles with this line. These two modes of delineation manifestly represent a restriction of the two varieties of diffuse or dispersed treatment of the fingers already illustrated. Both forms occur among children’s drawings. They may be found among the drawings of savages as well.[[255]]
In this terminal finger-arrangement the number of finger-lines varies greatly, being, in the cases observed by me, frequently four and five, and sometimes even as great as ten. It varies, too, greatly in the drawings of the same child, and in some cases even in the two hands of the same figure, showing that number is not attended to, as may be seen in the two annexed drawings, both by boys of five (Fig. 22 [(a)] and [(b)]). The idea seems to be to set forth a multiplicity of branching fingers, and multiplicity here seems to mean three or more. The same way of representing the hand by a claw-form, in which the number of fingers is three or more, reappears in the drawings of savages (cf. above, p. 339, Fig. 4 [(c)]).[[256]]
Fig. 22 (a).
Fig. 22 (b).
An important advance on these crude devices is seen where an attempt is made to indicate the hand and the relation of the fingers to this. One of the earliest of these attempts takes the form of the well-known toasting-fork or rake hand. Here a line at right angles to that of the arm symbolically represents the hand, and the fingers are set forth by the prongs or teeth (see above, p. 341, Fig. 6 [(a)], and p. 349, Fig. 18 [(a)]). Number is here as little attended to as in the radial arrangements. It is worth noting that this schema seems to be widely diffused among children of different nationalities, and occurs in the drawings of untaught adults. I have not, however, noticed any example of it among savage drawings.