https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWVrz5oCt2w<br /> The meaning of Hand Gestures in Art History<br /> Amuze Art Lectures

Middle and ring fingers together to represent modesty. (He doesn't say it, but it also could stand for "M" as in Medici??)

Finger pointing at viewer may indicate a self portrait.

Woman's hand on abdomen may represent pregnancy, a fertile marriage, or the desire to bear children.

The value of gesture is sometimes disparaged with the phrase "handy waving".

Some of this statement is misleading as a hand waving argument relies solely on the movement of the hands as "proof" of something which is neither communicated well with the use of either words or the physical hand movements. The communication fails on both axes, but the blame is placed on the gestural portion of the communication, perhaps because it may have been the more important of the two?

Link this to the example of the Riverside teacher who used both verbal and visual gestures and acting to cement the trigonometry ideas of soh, cah, toa to her students and got fired for it. In her example, the gauche behaviour was overamplified by extreme exaggeration as well as racist expression.