Are Left Handed People more likely to be Artists?
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Are you a left-handed artist?
Are artists more likely to be left-handed?
Are people who prefer to use their left hand more likely to be artists?
Do left-handed artists make better artists than right-handed artists?
Which famous artists are or were left-handed - and what's the evidence for this?
Find out about left handed artists and answer a quiz about which hand you prefer to use
You can find out about...
- POLL: Does being left-handed mean you're more likely to be an artist?
- Being Left Handed
- What does being left-handed actually mean?
- What percentage of the population are left-handed?
- The language of left handed
- A List of Left Handed Artists - or are they?
- Academic research into left handed artists
- Making A Mark Poll - Are you a left handed artist?
- Writing Resources for Artists
- Comments and Feedback
POLL: Does being left-handed mean you're more likely to be an artist?
The prevailing rate of people who are left-handed in the general population is now thought to be around 13%
There is a notion that people who are left-handed are MORE LIKELY to be artists - but is this true or is it an 'urban myth'?
In order to test this out, I've constructed this poll to try and provide some insight into this interesting question
PLEASE READ ALL THE OPTIONS BEFORE ANSWERING
Being Left Handed
What does being left-handed actually mean?
This is a definition from alt.lefthanders Frequently Asked Questions - Q01. What does being left-handed mean?
" being left-handed means having a preference for using your left hand for a variety of tasks, including reaching, throwing, pointing, catching. It also implies a preference for using your left foot for tasks such as kicking, as well as the preferred foot with which to begin walking, running and bicycling.
However, there are no hard and fast rules for determining which hand or foot the Lefthander prefers to use for a particular task. Most will prefer to use the left hand or foot for delicate work.
One may also have a dominant left eye, preferring to use the left eye for telescopes, camera sights, and microscopes.
In general, being left-handed means having a dominant right side of the brain.
AND
According to J.B. Sattler ( Das linkshändige Kind in der Grundschule, page 17) a better test to determine which hand is dominant is to note which hand is usually/preferably used to...
- be put up in school
- switch on/off lights
- brush teeth
- comb hair
- hammer
- water flowers
- throw dice
- pick up/count things
- open window/door
- use a screwdriver
- sew
- throw a ball etc.
- draw ,paint, write
However using your left hand might also be because it's not possible to use your right hand eg due to paralysis
- alt.lefthanders Frequently Asked Questions - Q01. What does being left-handed mean?
- [ Usenet FAQs | Web FAQs | Documents | RFC Index ]
alt.lefthanders Frequently Asked Questions
What percentage of the population are left-handed?
What do we know about the percentage of people who are left-handed in the "normal" population?
- Frequently asked questions (FAQ) - What percentage of the population are left-handed?
- For years, it has been widely accepted that 1 in 10 people are left-handed. However, research studies of a reasonable size to back up this figure are very hard to find.
Recently, small studies (usually among children) have come up with figures of between 12% and 15% of the population and it has been argued that perhaps this increase is due to social acceptability of left-handedness which has never before been the case.
The most recent study, by Prof. Chris McManus who has conducted widespread research into the genetic causes of handedness, has concluded that 13% of the population are currently left-handed. - Left-handedness - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Left-handedness is the preference for the left hand over the right for everyday activities such as writing. A variety of studies suggest that 8-15% of world population are left-handed.
Did You Know?
The words "adroitness" and "dexterity" derive from the French and Latin words for "right," while "gauche" and "sinister" derive from the words for "left."
The language of left handed
Nicknames and other names for being left-handed
One of the more irritating aspects of being left-handed are the names that are given to people who are left-handed - and some of the words which those names are derived from
- Left handed language
- Left handed means something bad in most languages and left-handers have always suffered abuse
- Left handed language - names for left handed
- Researchers preparing a survey of English dialects found 88 different words for 'left-handed' (mostly uncomplimentary) in local use in the 1950's including the following
A Left Hand Turn Around the World
Chasing the Mystery and Meaning of All Things Southpaw
Are Southpaws really more creative, or is that just a myth? Is there a gene for left-handedness?
David Wolman - a lefty, and proud of it - sets out to answer these and other questions on a journey through the world of the left-hander. The author is left-handed, has written for New Scientist and has a light-hearted touch to his writing. This book represents a record of his exploration of being left-handed. His unravelling of the evolutionary mystery of left-handedness s a mix of science and humour and the frankly bizarre.
A Left Hand Turn Around the World: Chasing the Mystery and Meaning of All Things Southpaw
Amazon Price: $2.52 (as of 06/02/2012)
Usually ships in 1-2 business days
A List of Left Handed Artists - or are they?
Lists of left-handed artists
Note that very few, if any, lists cite evidence for their assertions as to who is left handed.
It's very clear some lists have just copied other lists without looking for any verification
Just because it's on the Internet doesn't make it true!
- Art History - A List of Left-Handed Artists
- Left-Handed Artists: An alphabetical listing of visual artists who were/are gauche, sinister and otherwise work(ed) with their left hands.
No evidence cited for assertions - Being Left Handed - Left Handed Artists
- No evidence cited for assertions
- 8 Famous Left Handed Artists - Famouswhy
- 8 Famous Left Handed Artists - No evidence cited for assertions
- Famous Left Handers - Artists
- Famous Left Handers: M.K. Holder's list of left-handed actors, artists, authors, musicians, athletes, politicians, U.S. presidents, and historical figures. No evidence cited for assertions
- One hundred famous left-handed people | UK news | guardian.co.uk
- Today is the annual lefthanders' day. Here we list some famous southpaws.
No evidence cited for assertions
Academic research into left handed artists
- [Left-handed painters]. [Rev Neurol (Paris). 1995] - PubMed result
- PubMed is a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine that includes over 19 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for biomedical articles back to the 1950s.
Abstract
The role of the right hemisphere in the building of our visual space is now well established. The purpose of the present research was to determine the proportion of left handed painters, and to identify famous painters which were left-handed.
The methods were as follows.
* First, the study of the portraits of the painters; but self-portraits were worthless (right-handed painters often painting themself as observed in the mirror, i.e. left-handed). Therefore, only portraits of painters made by another painter or by photography were used.
* Secondly, the orientation of the hatchings used by the artist for the representation of the shadows in the drawing: the right-handed artist making hatchings descending from right to left, and the left-handed artist making hatchings descending from left to right.
* Thirdly, the study of the relevant literature about history of art. The studied population included 500 painters divided in two groups: a population of 127 painters studied by portraits and hatchings; and a population of 373 painters studied only by hatchings.
In the first population, the proportion of left-handed painters was 4.7%.
In the second population, the proportion of left-handed painters was 2.1%.
Among the 500 painters they were 14 left-handed subjects, i.e. 2.8%.
These 14 painters were, in alphabetical order: Cambiaso, Dufy, Escher, Füssli, Grandville, Holbein, Klee, De La Patellière, Léonard de Vinci, Menzel, Montelupo, Papety, Regnault, Van Goyen.
A List of Left Handed Artists - or is it?
Many artists have been identified as being left-handed - however normal probability rates means a certain percentage of artists are always going to be identified as left-handed and some of them are going to famous!
The interesting questions are:
* How to determine whether or not an artist is left-handed
* Whether or not more artists are left handed than right handed.
* Whether or not all the famous artists identified as being left handed are really left handed!
The right handed hemisphere of the brain is associated with creativity and the notion is that people who left-handed are more able than right-handed people to access their right hand-brain abilities. Which doesn't mean everybody who is left-handed is a naturally gifted artist - just as it doesn't mean that everybody who is right-handed is a gifted mathematician!
How to identify a left-handed artist
Academic research suggests three possible methods:
* studying the direction of hatching. Right handed artists tend to hatch from the top right to the bottom left - and left handed artists tend to make marks which are difficult for right handed artists to replicate. In my view this is a more conclusive way of testing for right or left handedness. However one needs to find areas of drawing where the hatching is completely unrelated to representation of a contour or the way that hair or fur grows. Most often it's consistent Left to Right hatching in the background which is the give away.
* looking at portraits of painters The problem with this is that self-portraits are often done using a mirror and this will show right handed people as being left-handed. Portraits and/or photographs of artists of the past by other artists might be more conclusive as to their whether individual artists are right or left handed. Today it's less of an issue as there are more photographs of artists at work. There again photographs can be printed the wrong way round!
* Independent verification through writings about the artist. Being left-handed (or ambidextrous) is still sufficiently unusual as to rate a mention
The list below includes people who have been asserted to be left-handed artists - and indicates the evidence for this.
This list will be updated over time.
- Leonardo da Vinci - see below
- Michelangelo Buonarotti - see below
- Albrecht Durer - see below
- Henry Fuseli - see below
- Pablo Picasso - see below
- M. C. Escher
- R Crumb - see below
Leonardo da Vinci
Painter, Sculptor, Architect, Engineer and Scientist
Leonardo da Vinci is one of the prime exponents of hatching and writing in a way which would be very difficult for a right-handed person to do. He's understood to have had impaired movement of mobility in his right hand so it's not known whether his lefthandedness was genetic or acquired.
However he was unequivocally left-handed.
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Leonardo, Left-Handed Draftsman and Writer By Carmen C. Bambach
- In his day, Leonardo was known as a mancino ("lefty" and "southpaw" are modern-day equivalents), with all the social, cultural, and psychological connotations-not all positive-that the word implied in the Renaissance and does even into our own time.1 He may be the most universally recognized left-handed artist of all time.
- Leonardo da Vinci - Web Gallery of Art - searchable database of European fine arts (1000-1850)
- Web Gallery of Art - Leonardo da Vinci - Studies of the Head. Note the consistent direction of hatching
- Leonardo da Vinci - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Identifies Leonardo as writing with his left hand.
- The Athenaeum - Displaying artworks for Leonardo da Vinci
- The Athenaeum - Displaying artworks for Leonardo da Vinci
- Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomist, The Queen's Gallery, review - Telegraph
- his complex yet lucid drawings, surrounded by precise left-handed notes written using his habitual right-to-left "mirror script", are obviously close to perfection.
- Unknown
- back to Da Vinci the scientist with a show of his drawings at the Queen's Gallery.
A pencil drawing of Sedge by Leonardo da Vinci
note the left handed hatching of the background
Michelangelo Buonaroti - not a leftie?
Painter and Sculptor
Michelangelo is quoted in several lists as being left-handed but NONE of the lists that I've seen identify the source for this stated "fact". Contemporaneous artists writing about Leonardo comment on the fact that he was left-handed while those writing about Michelangelo fail to do so - suggesting there was nothing worthy of comment.
There is a frequently quoted notion that Michelangelo was ambidextrous on the strength of his painting of Adam as left-handed. Interestingly his entry in wikipedia makes no reference to this fact.
One of the main ways of telling whether or not somebody is left-handed is to look at their preferred direction for hatching - and his hatching indicates he is right-handed.
It seems possible that some commentators may have confused him with Leonardo da Vinci
- Michelangelo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni[1] (6 March 1475 - 18 February 1564), commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer. Despite making few forays beyond the arts, his versatility in the disciplines he took up was of such a high order that he is often considered a contender for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man, along with his rival and fellow Italian, Leonardo da Vinci.
No reference to being lef-handed - Answers.com - How do you know that Michelangelo was left-handed
- Michelangelo question: How do you know that Michelangelo was left-handed? We don't. The lines in his drawings usually go right to left, the way right-handed people draw. There is only one historical reference,
- Michelangelo Buonarroti 1475 - 1564
- Neil R. Bonner, ed., Michelangelo Buonarroti Website, 14 December 2001, Michelangelo.COM, Inc., http://michelangelo.com/buonarroti.html
- Drawings by MICHELANGELO - Web Gallery of Art - searchable database of European fine arts (1000-1850)
- Web Gallery of Art,- Michelangelo drawings
Albrecht Dürer, German Painter, Draftsman and Printmaker
He also seems to fall into the category of being described as left-handed with no academic sources cited for this conclusion.
My observation of his drawing would suggest he was meticulous about representing contours and hair growth accurately and would ue whichever method of hatching was appropriate to the subject matter.
The word "left handed" is often associated with his work - but within the context of the fine art prints which were created where subjects would all appear left-handed when printed due to the reversal of the image during the printing process
- Albrecht Dürer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- No mention of Durer being left-handed.
Henry Fuseli, English Painter
Left handed hatching evident in drawings Plus lefthandedness cited in an article - Leonardo, Left-Handed Draftsman and Writer by Carmen C. Bambach
"The third case concerns Henry Fuseli (1741-1825), who was ambidextrous until 1772, when, during a sojourn in Venice, a fever turned his hair white and gave him a permanent tremor of the right hand that forced him thereafter to draw only with his left."
- Master drawings from the Yale ... - Google Books
- This beautiful and important book highlights the collection of European drawings at the Yale University Art Gallery, one of America's premier university museums. From intimate studies to exquisite finished compositions, this selection of works documents the history of European drawing practices
It highlight's Fuseli's left-handed hatching
M. C. Escher - graphic artist
Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972) is one of the world's most famous graphic artists.
A hugely talented and very well known graphic artist. Accredited as being left handed by academic research. Plus he is of course modern enough for people to know for certain.
- The Official M.C. Escher Website - Biography of M C Escher
- M.C. Escher, during his lifetime, made 448 lithographs, woodcuts and wood engravings and over 2000 drawings and sketches. Like some of his famous predecessors, - Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Dürer and Holbein-, M.C. Escher was left-handed.
- Escher
- M.C. Escher was a Dutch graphic artist, most recognized for spatial illusions, impossible buildings, repeating geometric patterns and his incredible techniques in woodcutting and lithography.
- M. C. Escher - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- M. C. Escher - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Note the drawing of the sphere which is held in his right hand.
R. Crumb (American Comic Illustrator)
It's always nice when the evidence for being left-handed comes from a book written by the artist and photographs of the artist!
- R. Crumb: conversations - Google Books
- BIOGRAPHY- POPULAR CULTURE comic art-->R. Crumb's illustrations have appeared on the covers of albums by Big Brother and the Holding Company, on bootlegged T-shirts, and in several underground newspapers.
He is left-handed according to this book - The Official R. Crumb Website
- The Official R. Crumb Website
- About R.Crumb -- Hey, I'm Still Here
- * BIOGRAPHY
Includes picture of Robert Crumb holding his mug in his left hand - R Crumb Prints
- Check out the direction of cross-hatching in the series of drawings in the left hand column.
Explaining a Left-handed World
Making A Mark Poll - Are you a left handed artist?
See Are you a left handed artist? (Poll Results)
262 people in total voted in the poll and the pattern of voting was apparent from early on.
* 31% of those responding identified themselves as left-handed artists
* 9% identified themselves as ambidextrous artists
* 58% were right-handed artists
Making A Mark
Artist and author Katherine Tyrrell draws and writes about art for artists and art lovers.
Writing Resources for Artists
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ryokomayuka
May 21, 2012 @ 3:30 pm | delete
- I'm a lefty. I like to do art and write stuff. I love learning now stuff. Great len
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paintingsgalore22
Aug 5, 2011 @ 10:31 am | delete
- Very interesting lens... this made me think.
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RinchenChodron
Feb 6, 2011 @ 9:44 am | delete
- I'm left handed and a dancer - do you consider that art? Great lens.
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makingamark
Feb 6, 2011 @ 10:43 am | delete
- Inn the wider scheme of things "yes".
For the purposes of this lens it's written for visual artists - so I guess that would mean
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WildFacesGallery
Jan 30, 2011 @ 12:05 pm | delete
- I'm a right handed artist but my mother who is a painter is left handed.
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vallain Jan 30, 2011 @ 8:59 am | delete
- Very interesting topic. I've lensrolled it to Left Handed Gifts for Left Handed People.
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