I'm starting a trickle-thread of images related to bodily communication & expression. Updates sporadic but hopefully delightful.

Mudras from an 11th-12th century Japanese scroll. (Source: http://bit.ly/3049GPH )

An 1872 visualization of gesture space—I think of it as the "gesture globe." (Source: http://bit.ly/3bFziaM )

Figures from Roth's 1897 monograph on an Aboriginal (alternate) sign language used in Queensland, Australia. Love the fletching on those arrows! (Source: https://wellcomecollection.org/works/z74yavfk/ )

King Belshazzar and his feast crew reading—and pointing to—the writing on the wall (c. 1400). (Source: https://bit.ly/2OlwgAm )

Detail of 'Pointing arm' (1990), a painting by Kevin Wolff. Some serious self-referentiality. (Source: http://bit.ly/2PBe3zF )

'Movement of the hand, beating time' (1884-6) by Eadweard Muybridge. One of 781 plates in his pioneering 'Animal Locomotion' series. (Source: http://mo.ma/2OcVd1o )

Japanese woodblock print from 1842 depicting eight shadow figures: crow, turtle, snail, man in hat, fox, rabbit, owl, and a sachihoko. (Source: http://bit.ly/3l1XgBp .)

Detail of Leonardo's 'A Woman in a Landscape' (c. 1517-8). Also known as the 'Pointing Lady' sketch. (Source: http://bit.ly/3cIX5XR )

Detail from a watercolor depicting Krishna and his family admiring (and pointing to) a solar eclipse (c. 1775-80). (Source: http://s.si.edu/2QiDQNf ).

Old fave: an illustration by Stuyvesant Van Veen for David Efron's 'Gesture and Environment' (1941). I think of it as the 'gesture octopus', though technically only seven gestures depicted. (Source: http://bit.ly/3d2LNxW ).

Images (watercolor and ink on palm leaf!) from a 14th century Nepali "manuscript of gestures." (Source: https://bit.ly/2Oj8zt2 )

Sketches of signs from Plains Indian Sign Language (PISL) made by Garrick Mallery (1831-1894). SUN (left), ACROSS (top right), LONG TIME (bottom right). (Various sources, but see: https://si-siris.blogspot.com/2020/11/new-virtual-finding-aids-for-two.html).

More by Garrick Mallery: his 1880 typology of hand shapes used in Plains Indian Sign Language (PISL). (Source: https://bit.ly/3s1OHbz )