terpellative effects. Reevaluated in that way, the corresponding artistictechni-
ques represents aboveall apolitically motivated division of labor,with the
first reserved for various capitalist,bourgeois, and fascist others and the second
performedonthe collective bodyofthe imaginary proletariat itself.
Despite the simple design, the meaning of the open hand inFive Fingersis
far from unambiguous after all: Must thegesture be interpreted as an act of ag-
gression, as suggested by the command“Seize the Enemy”?Ifso, who is the
enemy? Conservative bourgeois parties, such as the German NationalPeople’s
Party and the CatholicCenter Party,orthe KPD’srivalsonthe left and right,
the so-called“social fascists”(e.g.,SPD) and the National Socialists?Oristhe
gestureademand to be counted and heard–ademandmade to the institutions
of Weimar democracy in response to the countless anticommunist measures
passed since the fateful days ofJanuary1919?Can the curled fingers be under-
stood as an invitation, directed at the workers themselveswho are to be seized
by this displayofpolitical strength?Or, as yetanother possibility,must the ex-
tended hand be read asadesperategesture to save communism from state vio-
lence and Nazi aggression?Answering these questions requires at least some
consideration of the long history of hands as symbols of divine and human cre-
ation and the much shorter history of hands as symbols of the workers’move-
ment.
Hands have figured prominentlyinreligious and secular art ever since Leo-
nardo daVinci’sStudyofHands(1474), the inspiration forTheCreation ofAdam
in the Sistine Chapel, and Albrecht Dürer’sfamous etchingPraying Hands(1508)
established their relevance to discourses of faith and work. Intricatelydrawn
hands allowed artiststo demonstrate their familiaritywith basichuman anato-
my and their mastery of artistic tools and techniques:paint,pencil, brush, or,in
this case, scissors, masks, and retouchingink. Praying and workinghands re-
mainedaubiquitousreference point even as the medievaldictum oforaetlabora
(prayand work)was adapted to the decidedlymodern regimes of class struggle
and industrial labor.The ritualizedgestures of supplication, instruction, and ar-
gumentationthat endowed hands with spiritual qualities continued to inspire
the visual archivesfor the representation of communist faith.It might even be
argued that the tradition of the emblem–thatis, the pictorial imageofaconcept
with clear didactic functions–hadaprofound impact on Heartfield’sapproach
to image-text relations,and did so inways that indirectlyconfirm the close links
between didactic and propagandistic functions and betweenreligious and polit-
ical traditions in the registers of proletarian modernism.Accordingly, inFive Fin-
gers,the emblem’sthree-part structure returns in thepictura,which refersto the
visual component of the emblem (i.e., the hand); theinscriptio,which makes an
ethical demandorconveys apoliticalmessage(“Five fingers has the hand/ with
314 Chapter17