The official definition of Appendage is something connected or joined to a larger or more important thing. While an appendage and its anchor may not be mutually dependent on one another, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and the part can sometimes be greater than itself.
This story began with an exhibition of paintings and works on paper by Minoo Emami, an Iranian artist who uses images of prostheses to comment on the impact of war, not just physically, but also emotionally and mentally. The works of art reflect what the amputee has lost beyond the limb itself—a part of one's body that will never feel touch, a sense of self that is damaged, and more. So with this exhibition the word "appendage" continued to rattle around my head as I reflected upon the nature of the relationship between the part to the whole and vice versa—particularly when I encountered them in visual form. What is the purpose of an appendage?—to provide support or restraint, convey meaning with gesture, perceive physical sensation, and more. What happens to these purposes when the relationship between the appendage to its anchor suddenly changes? And how is the nature of meaning and existence reflected in the thing itself?
ARTICLE | Minoo Emami: An Iranian Artist on War and Its Victims
WEBSITE | Minoo Emami War Gallery
The Phantom Limb
I can think of no one more capable of eloquently describing what goes on in the mind of a person who has lost or damaged a limb than Oliver Sacks. And in "The Leg" he does so not just as a neurologist, but as a patient. He was in the mountains of Norway when he found himself being tossed of a cliff by a bull. He was alone and severly injured. Eventually he was found by a hunter and taken to the nearest village, then back to London for surgery. He woke from surgery and asked himself, "The operated leg was entirely covered in a cast, so I couldn’t really see it – but who needs to see their body, if they feel it and move it?" For Sacks, his leg was still there physically, but without sensation it no longer existed—its absence was in his head even though the limb itself was still very real.
“My own leg, in this moment, was no longer my own, and no longer part of my body or my self. No longer part of anything – unreal, absurd. (‘That which is not Body is no part of the Universe,’ writes Hobbes, ‘and since the Universe is All, it is Nothing and Nowhere.’) Suddenly, then, my leg (my ex-leg) was Nothing and Nowhere: it was gone, so far as living or felt reality was concerned; it was no longer ‘there’. And indeed there was no ‘there’: it had gone, and left not a trace behind; neither a trace, or a place, or a space (Leibniz’s notion of Nothingness: ‘No Trace, Place or Space’).”
But as Suzanne Vega put to song, the opposite can also be true. A perceived physical existence for the missing appendage is very much real for those who have lost appendages. This is more fully described in Oliver Sach's book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. In chapter 6, "Phantoms," a person who lost a finger might, very genuinely, feel that it will poke out their eye; a perception of one's own physical position in time and space is distorted because they feel the appendage exists in a place it does not; or one might feel very real pain in the limb that is no longer there.
BOOK | Oliver Sachs, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales,
Chapter 6, "Phantoms."
Meaning in Gesture
So what meaning is created in the appendages that are still "joined to a larger, more important thing"?
Restraint, Resistance, and Support
In the biblical story in Genesis of Jacob wrestling the angel, Jacob fights all night with a mysterious assailant.
Genesis 32:22–32
24) And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day.
25) When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.
26) Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
27) And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.”
28) Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.”
However, in Gustave Moreau's Jacob and the Angel, there is more to this battle than a story of struggle and redemption. Jacob is pushing and leaning in with great strength—one hand open, one hand closed in a gesture that appears to be defiant, defensive, and unaware of the exact nature and location of his assailant. At the same time the arm of the angel looks more like the firm gesture and grip of a parent that shows both incredible strength and restraint with a gentleness that says, "Calm down, there is no need to fight me—we are on the same side." Jacob is also not lame—his legs firmly planted in a stance ready for hand-to-hand combat.
PAINTING | Gustave Moreau, Jacob and the Angel, Harvard Art Museums
Suzanne Singletary, in "Jacob Wrestling with the Angel: A Theme in Symbolist Art" writes, "In both the small watercolor of 1878 in the Musée Gustave Moreau and the oil painting of the same year in the Fogg Museum, Moreau conjures an hallucinatory ambiance in which Jacob vigorously shadow boxes with thin air. The Angel is separate and above the fray, clearly situating the wrestling match within Jacob's psyche. In the watercolor, the Angel does not touch Jacob, but simply studies his confusion with a look of compassion. In the final painting, the Angel gently touches Jacob's arm in a gesture that seems far more consoling and calming than aggressive. ...Moreau's Angel is an advocate rather than opponent." (pp 304–305).
PUBLICATION | Suzanne M. Singletary, "Jacob Wrestling with the Angel: A Theme in Symbolist Art," Nineteenth-Century French Studies, Vol. 32, No. 3/4 (SPRING SUMMER 2004), pp. 298-315.
Physical and Emotional Support
In the image below, Picasso's Woman with a Chignon (foreground) and Mother and Child (background), the appendages provide both emotional and physical support. Another title for Mother and Child is The Sad Mother. So in this image, the arms of the mother, though barely visible, embrace and hold the child, providing emotional and physical warmth—but who is comforting whom or is comfort mutually exchanged between the two? And in Woman with a Chignon, those white hands are visually cut off at the wrists looking like they are separated from the rest of the body. They provide a solid prop upon which the unknown woman can hold up her head and steady her gaze upon the viewer. The figure is solid, the emotion conveyed is not. Is she tired, contemplative, or maybe a little drunk? Is she alone or are we her companion across the table?—It's hard to know, but she can look straight at you forever until you decide.
Picasso painted these during his Blue Period from 1901–1904. A period in which the melancholy tones, composition, and subject matter (mostly portraits of the poor and disenfranchised) reflected Picasso's own, very real, poverty and depression.
REFERENCE | Picasso's Blue Period, Wikipedia.
DRAWING | Pablo Ruiz Picasso, A Mother and Child and Four Studies of Her Right Hand, 1904.
When Gesture is a Language of Its Own
In this video produced by the Guggenheim Museum as part of its Guggenheim Signs series, there are two sets of arms and hands of interest. There are those of the painted figure in Picasso's Woman Ironing and those of the woman using American Sign Language. This language of gesture animates the painting and communicates with motion as much, if not more, meaning as the painting communicates in stillness. To fully absorb the interpreter's intensity of gesture—of face, hands, and arms—the video should be watched without simultaneously looking at the subtitles. With her motion, the meaning of the painting is conveyed in a way no text on a wall can. The best examples of this can be seen in these clips:
"...in a lighter but still still bleak color scheme of whites and grays, is Picasso's quintessential image of travail and fatigue" (1:15)
"In Woman Ironing the weary subject appears to be pressing down on the iron with all the force she can muster. This gesture seems a metaphor for the effect of dull, repetitive labor pressing down on her, draining her of color." (3:24)
The Appendage's Appendage
And what of the things we make as an extension of, or covering for, our appendages?—The hand that fits the glove, the feet that wore the shoes, the arm that swung the club, the finger that pulled the trigger.
“My mother used to tell me I had an overactive imagination.... I can’t help it, I catch sight of these discarded scraps, a dirty T-shirt or a discarded shoe, and all I can think of is the other shoe and the feet that fitted into them.”
The same feeling arises in the exhibition, Arts of War: Artistry in Weapons across Cultures at the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology, Harvard University. Here, the objects shown, either cover appendages or extend their actions by augmenting the amount of force they can leverage and protection they can provide. The exhibition also asks us to think about the hands that crafted these objects: "What would compel a warrior to deliberately imbue his weapon with beauty that stands in such stark contrast to its intended purpose? And why are war objects so much more common and elaborately decorated than those crafted for peace-making?"
What can we find out about the people that used these objects when they are no longer wearing or holding them? The person that used this was probably wealthy or of high rank to warrant these ornate details...
The society that made armor like this lived near the ocean and used their natural resources with great skill...
And like the quote from The Girl on the Train—I can't help but wonder about two people in particular—the person that would have held a weapon shaped like a hand holding another weapon and the person that made it.
The Appendage and the Self
And when a self-portrait is not a face—can a the essence of an individual be captured in a disembodied part?
By Theo7705 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link
John Coplans
John Coplans had a long career as an artist, editor, and writer (among many other things), but it wasn't until his 60s when he gained popularity as a photographer. At this time his work consisted of large black and white photographic self-portraits that never included his face. But the images of his body parts, often separated from the parts they are attached to, provide a unique look at his own identity as an aging man.
“A major element in the fascination was an obsession with one of our few remaining taboos: the process of ageing and physical decrepitude. And with the anonymity of identity: in Coplans’s words, ‘To remove all references to my current identity, I leave out my head.’ The blow-ups of sagging flesh, creased folds, odd protuberances and body hair of an old man become the documentary tale of the decline of Everyman.”
WEBSITE | John Coplans, 1920–2003, Tate Modern.
REFERENCE | John Coplans, Wikipedia.
The Thing Connected to a Larger or More Important Thing
So the physiological relationship between an appendage to its host is not mutual. A person can function without a hand, but not vice versa. However, the emotional and psychological relationship between the two parts is a strong bond. It's one that can impact an individual's physical relationship to the world around them, communicate emotion and meaning, and shift the nature of identity—both in states of existence and absence.
Originally posted on storify.com/lunch2mcurator in 2016.
