Handbook

Erwitt, Elliott

Code: 2324

ISBN: 9780971454835

Publisher: Quantuck Lane Press

New Hardcover

Price: £25

In stock, ready to ship

In introducing this album of black-and-white photographs, Charles Flowers cites an anthropologist's contention that 60 percent of communication is nonverbal, and most of that is done with the hands. Flowers also says no one lacks an opinion about his or her hands, investing them with as much personality as the face. Those and other notions Flowers plants induce greater-than-usual consciousness of the implications of these 100-plus images. The adult hands securing a little child's swimsuit appear full of everyday love, while the hand of a man fingering the waist of a woman's bikini bottom first implies penny-ante lust, then, perhaps, pestering, or maybe grooming. The same gesture--hand to forehead as if supporting a heavy mind--reads as weariness in an aged nun, as penitence in an old man seated by what seems to be a sermonizing preacher. That such involving, information-rich interpretations arise so readily is a testament to Erwitt's mastery of selection, composition, focus, and lighting. Ray Olson Copyright ® American Library Association. All rights reserved Book Description What is it about hands? We think we communicate with words, but has anyone ever told that to an Italian? Where did the expression tongue-tied come from? No one ever tied a tongue. But tie their hands and about half the world's communicators would be silenced. The human (and sometimes non-human) hands are, with the possible exception of the eyes, the most expressive parts of the body, asking for more or less, telling us to come or to go, asking questions and answering them, scolding, rewarding, searching and finding, and, at their most intimate, loving and lustful. Hands reward us, calm us, feed us, and scratch our backs. They intimidate, bless, encourage, and stop us. They soothe, caress, and sometimes go where they shouldn't. We may take hands for granted. But Elliott Erwitt does not. Here is Erwitt at his most serious-and-yet-whimsical best, giving us the moments which, without hands, would not exist. 100 duotone images.