Found Art – A Show of Magical Hands

Not long ago I read that  Sotheby’s is planning to sell  a collection of photographs of hands amassed by businessman Henry Buhl in the 19 years since he paid  $75,000 for his first:  a photograph by Alfred Stieglitz of the hands of Georgia O’Keefe.  Sothebys will sell 400 pieces from the Buhl collection on Dec. 12^th  and 13th, including the original Stieglitz image, which is estimated to go for over a million dollars.

 Reading this delighted me, because I too have been collecting hands for years, (not photos, but all kinds of representations of hands.)  None of my collection will ever be sold by Sotheby’s, but at least now I can consider my collection “art”.

 Hands have always seemed to be spooky, magical, beautiful and filled with power.  I looked up  “hand” in “The Book of Symbols” from Taschen and learned that, on the walls of the cave of Pech-Merle in France, prehistoric artists outlined their hands in red ochre and black cinder over 20,000 years ago near  drawn images of horses.  Even at the dawn of human consciousness, the image of a hand seemed magical and important.

The prehistoric hand print in the cave reminded me of what a friend said after visiting a Hindu temple in India where the walls were marked with the red-henna handprints of young widows on the way to their death, because their religion decreed that they had to commit suttee— a widow must throw herself on the funeral pyre of her dead husband . “All those hands,” he said sadly.  “They were so small and there were so many of them.” 

 Of course in a Hindu wedding the hands of the bride and groom (and the guests), lavishly decorated in henna with symbolic figures at the mehndi,  are important symbols. Here are the hands of the bride, Neela, at the fabulous wedding in Jodhpur that we attended several years ago.  The bride and the groom had their feet and hands decorated.  Both their names were worked  into the bride's design--which the groom had to discover for himself  (If you want to know more, check out my post “The Hindu Wedding – At Last!”).

 Here are some photos from my collection of hands.  As I’ve mentioned before, I collect way too many things, and I love them all and consider them “found art.”

Probably the most valuable in my hand collection is the two-part Namaste altar  (at top) showing the elephant god Ganesh and Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity, each seated on their animal mounts (the rat and the owl).  When the ivory hands are closed, they form the traditional greeting “Namaste” which means “”The divine in me honors and recognizes the divine in you.”

 In the kitchen I have one wall covered with objects that incorporate hearts, (told you I collect too much) and several of these are the “heart-in-hand”  design that I always thought was an early-American kind of valentine.  But I discovered that the heart-in-hand is actually a symbol of charity, which originated with the Shaker sect: “Put your hands to work and your hearts to God.”  It is also a symbol of the fraternal order of Odd Fellows.

 The Victorians were very big on hands—in vases, pin dishes, calling cards, brooches and just about everything.  Here is a small display case of tiny hands.  The metal ones at the top are part of a drinking game.  The one at the right reads “You pay -- Jack Daniels -- 1866”.

The largest hand in my collection is this one carved out of wood—it’s about two feet across and I put a carved wooden angel in it.  (Did I mention that I also collect angels?)   Next to it, to show its size, is an articulated hand of the kind used by artists as a model.

 I absolutely love this “Hand of Christ” also known as “La Mano Poderosa”—“The most powerful hand”.  It symbolizes the wounded hand of the crucified Christ with representations of the Holy Family on the fingers—Baby Jesus on the thumb (because he’s the most important), Virgin Mary on the index finger, followed by St Joseph, then St Anne and St. Joachim, Mary’s parents.  The red marks represent Christ’s wounds.

All hands seem magical.  The red one above, from Italy, is making a gesture meant (I think) to ward off the evil eye.  The hand in the center is a reliquary that is holding a bone that is probably said to be from a saint and therefore efficacious in sending one's requests to Heaven. 

It’s no wonder that we cherish plaster impressions of our toddlers' little hands and use fingerprints for identification—each hand  is unique and hands can be as eloquent as faces.

BURNING BODIES IN BENARAS

BURNING BODIES IN BENARAS

(Benaras is now properly called Varansi, but I liked the alliteration)

In my last post I said that the Ganges River and the holy city of Varanasi on its banks are believed to be a “crossing” or sacred place where mortals can cross over to the divine (and vice versa). That is why all Hindus want to die there or have their ashes thrown into the Ganges so that they can achieve moksha, the salvation of the soul from the cycle of birth, death and rebirth. (You may have seen in the film “The Namesake” that the family brought the ashes of the dead father from the United States to throw into the Ganges.)

As soon as we arrived in Vanarasi, riding in a taxi from the airport, we encountered a funeral procession – four men carrying on their shoulders the poles of a stretcher on which was a body wrapped in red silk and covered with flowers. (We later learned, if the body is wrapped in a red sari, it’s a woman. If it’s wrapped in gold cloth, it’s a man.)

When you walk along the ghats or steps on the sides of the Ganges you will see two cremation ghats where male untouchables cremate bodies all day and night. We went near with a guide but kept a respectful distance and did not take photographs, of course, because it would be disrespectful. The photos above of dead bodies are post cards I bought.

Later, after dark, like all other visitors to Vanarasi, we hired a small rowboat to take us down the river where we saw the burning ghats from a distance in the darkness and then anchored near the shore to watch the holy men perform their synchronized fire worship with torches. (They now perform beneath neon-lit “umbrellas” which represent the large umbrellas under which they sit all day.)

On the river there were two larger boats full of Japanese tourists who wore masks over their nose and mouth, which was not a bad idea since I managed to inhale enough ash in the smoky air to have a coughing fit. One can only wonder about the lifetime effects of breathing in that smoke (which casts a constant fog over the river). But somehow the natives don’t seem to become ill from swimming in the polluted river or inhaling the endless smog.


Fascinating facts about the cremation of the bodies on the huge wood fires made from logs of teak and sandalwood. The bodies, wrapped in silk, are first bathed in the river, then coated with a flammable paste and incense powder to hide the smell. Fat people burn faster, thin people more slowly. It takes about four hours for the body to be reduced to ashes which are then thrown into the river by a male relative. It’s also a male relative who lights the funeral pyre.

Our guide told us there are seven kinds of people who are not allowed to be cremated (due to bad karma, I guess, or the danger of spreading germs in the smoke.) I can name five of these: people who died of suicide, snakebite or smallpox, pregnant women who died with the baby unborn, and newborn babies. (I don’t swear this is accurate—it’s what I was told.) Those who are not cremated are wrapped with stones in the wrappings and tossed into the river, to sink. An estimated 45,000 UNCREMATED bodies are dumped into the river each year!)

Watching the fires burning at night from the distance of a boat on the river, it’s an awesome and beautiful sight. Even watching close up from the shore, it’s a moving and sacred thing to see these individuals being delivered into the afterlife with such ceremony and love. While we were there, the children were all practicing kite flying because the nationwide Kite Festival was approaching. As the dead were being burned, women in saris were doing laundry, the holy men were bathing and chanting, the children were playing and selling necklaces of flowers to throw into the river. On the banks of the Ganges in Varanasi the bustling activities surrounding life and death all take place side by side , unremarkably, because birth, play, work and death are all threads in the tapestry of life in India.