Fig. 72.
The sitting warrior on the left of Athené presents his left hand flat and carried well up. This position, supposed to be stationary, now means to ask, inquire, and it may be that he inquires of the other veteran what reasons he can produce for his temporizing policy. This may be collated with the modern Neapolitan sign for ask, Fig. 70, and the common Indian sign for “tell me!” Fig. 71. In connection with this it is also interesting to compare the Australian sign for interrogation, Fig. 72, and also the Comanche Indian sign for give me, [Fig. 301], page 480, infra. If, however, the artist had the intention to represent the flat hand as in motion from below upward, as is probable from the connection, the meaning is much, greatly. He strongly disapproves the counsel of the opposite side. Our Indians often express the idea of quantity, much, with the same conception of comparative height, by an upward motion of the extended palm, but with them the palm is held downward. The last figure to the right, by the action of his whole body, shows his rejection of the proposed delay, and his right hand gives the modern sign of combined surprise and reproof.
It is interesting to note the similarity of the merely emotional gestures and attitudes of modern Italy with those of the classics. The Pulcinella, Fig. 73, for instance, drawn from life in the streets of Naples, has the same pliancy and abandon of the limbs as appears in the supposed foolish slaves of the Vatican Terence.
Fig. 73.
Fig. 74.
In close connection with this branch of the study reference must be made to the gestures exhibited in the works of Italian art only modern in comparison with the high antiquity of their predecessors. A good instance is in the Last Supper of Leonardo da Vinci, painted toward the close of the fifteenth century, and to the figure of Judas as there portrayed. The gospel denounces him as a thief, which is expressed in the painting by the hand extended and slightly curved; imitative of the pilferer’s act in clutching and drawing toward him furtively the stolen object, and is the same gesture that now indicates theft in Naples, Fig. 74, and among some of the North American Indians, Fig. 75. The pictorial propriety of the sign is preserved by the apparent desire of the traitor to obtain the one white loaf of bread on the table (the remainder being of coarser quality) which lies near where his hand is tending. Raffaelle was equally particular in his exhibition of gesture language, even unto the minutest detail of the arrangement of the fingers. It is traditional that he sketched the Madonna’s hands for the Spasimo di Sicilia in eleven different positions before he was satisfied.