The Book of a Hundred Hands

by George B. Bridgman

Mr. Bridgman states unequivocally in his introduction that before preparing this book he had "not discovered a single volume devoted exclusively to the depicting of the hand." Apparently Mr. Bridgman has appreciated what few others have felt — the human hand's great capacity for expression and the care that the artist must take to realize it. The hand changes with the age of the person, is shaped differently according to sex, reflects the type of work to which it is put, the physical health, and even the emotions of the person. To represent these distinguishing features, to capture the expressiveness of a particular pair of hands, the artist must understand the construction, anatomy, formation, and function of the hand.
There is probably no better instructor to turn to for this understanding than Mr. Bridgman, a well-respected artist who for nearly 50 years lectured and taught at the Art Students League of New York. In this volume, a full text is accompanied by many illustrations depicting virtually every aspect and posture of the human hand. He first considers the back view of the hand, the wrist bones, the tendons, the muscles, the hand bones, the arch, and the veins; and then those of the palm. Throughout he pictures the musculature at work beneath the surface of the skin. He continues by showing how the muscles operate on the thumb side and on the little finger side when each is the center of force; how the thumb and fingers are constructed, their freedom of movement, joints, and complete anatomy as well as views of them straight, bent, and flexed; how the knuckles are formed, what shapes the fist can take and how flexible it can be; and he concludes with illustrations of the total movement, either turning or rotary, of the hand in its various positions.
The 100 illustrations the author has selected perfectly define the regions of the hand so that any artist, beginning or experienced, will increase his mastery of it. Better rendering of the human hand is sure to add new expressiveness to your human figures along with new forcefulness and new interest.

Genres: Art, Drawing, Nonfiction, Reference, How To, Art Design

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1920

About the author

George Brant Bridgman was a Canadian-American artist, teacher and writer. Born in Canada he spent most of his working life in the USA teaching anatomy and figure drawing at the Arts Students League of New York. His students included many future famous artists including Will Eisner, Marion Greenwood, Andrew Loomis and Norman Rockwell.

Reviews

[Aaron]

"I see you're into hands" she said, lighting a cigarette and taking a sip from her Martini.
"What's it to you, dollface?" I put the book down. I lit a cigarette of my own and ordered another drink.
"I'm looking for a man who's good with hands."
"Looks like it's your lucky day... "
(Trying to write a book review while watching Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. To be continued...)
This, along with other Dover classics such as Sundials; Dynamics of Fluids in Porous Materials; and Theory of Wing Sections add zazz to any library.

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I didn't realize that Goodreads was keeping track of how much time I was reading this. It didn't really take over a year to read this. I did other things during that time. Created new documents in Microsoft Word and Adobe InDesign; ate some almonds, olives and cornichons; dusted off lawnchairs, etc.

All in all, I liked this book, though while I was reading it, I was kind of wishing I was reading Pete Townshend's Who I Am instead.

[Cherrie Wang · Rating 5 out of 5]

copy all the hands cover to cover 3x, and your hands will have muscle memory of some very excellent hands

[Reeda Booke · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this one because hands and feet are the hardest things to draw for me. This helped a lot and I have been sketching lots of hands and feet in different poses for practice.
Definitely recommend any of his books for all artists out there!

[Jackie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was a little disappointed in this book. It does have lots of hand illustrations, BUT many of them look like rough scribbles. A few I couldn't make heads or tails of!

However, there were many poses of hands that WERE helpful to me as an artist.
It is a decent reference book for hand poses and musculature, bones and wrinkles found in hands.

There MUST be better books on drawing hands out there though! This is just the first one I checked out from the library. I'll keep looking.

[Mitch B · Rating 2 out of 5]

Complete Guide to Drawing From Life is the essential, Hundred hands is the optional, I don't necessarily like any of Bridgman's other books, but at best Hundred hands gets a passing grade. The hands in the book are well constructed much like the rest of his work but they are specifically pushing 50 grandpa hands. They lack subtly and and are too ridged even by 1920's standards. 90% of the hands you will draw will not look like Bridgman's.

[Jedkimball]

Great concepts for learning to draw structure of the hand

[Yaotl Altan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Contiene muchos dibujos de manos, lo cual facilita la rápida lectura del libro, a partir de los cuales aprendí conceptos sobre el trazo de las muñecas, medidas de los dedos, nombres de los huesos, músculos, tendones, etc. Podemos ver una mano con piel y otra "despellejada" o en huesos.

Resume bien la función de la muñeca, tendones y conformación de los nudillos en una frase: "la mano es una herramienta y, al mismo tiempo, un arma". Conviene practicarlos para hacer mejores dibujos.

Me llamó la atención el estilo antiguo de su redacción, y ¡cómo no!, pues fue publicado por vez primera en 1920. 175 páginas publicadas por Dover Publications, Inc.

[Michaell Cavllaro · Rating 5 out of 5]

GREAT BOOK DEALING WITH THE ATOMICAL STRUCTURE OF THE HAND

I like the many examples of the hand that are pictured in this book, along with their descriptions. By copying these examples of the hand my drawing of the hand is improving.

[Val Mathews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recommend all George B. Bridgman's books to every artist, even sculptors who don't like to sketch.

[Eduardo Bello · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not good.

I was waiting something bether, at least is cheap. Is a very simple book, not good if You want to going deeper

[Giovanni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bridgman's style felt a bit strange at the beginning, but it shows its beauty as one progresses through the book. My suggestion would be to copy using ink, as the illustrations are done.

[Viki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dry, rambling, and dated, but still has some decent reference value.

[Unja · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent

[Juho Pohjalainen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A ton of good pictures but I found the text hard to follow.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Think GoodReads' edition is a bit different from mine which is called Bridgman's Book of 100 Hands with only 128 pages.

It's a great reference for drawing hands, but it's not a "how to" book. Instead he describes and illustrates bone structure, muscles, and tendons along with all manner of drawn hands in all sorts of positions. If you're good at replicating something you're looking at, then this book will be very helpful. If you want a step by step, draw this sequence of steps to create a hand, this is not the book for you.

I drew several of Bridgman's hands which you can check out here to get a feel for the drawings in the book.

Though it's Bridgman's Book of 100 Hands, my copy says it has 484 illustrations, various views of those 100 hands one presumes.

[Serge Pierro · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairly thorough look at human hands. A wide variety of poses are covered, along with the associated musculature. I prefer Hogarth's book to this.

[Ezri Baedeker · Rating 3 out of 5]

so many hands.