The attitudes of figures reacting around a table
Gestures for a group composition: drinking, wonder, whispering
A full page of pen text describes, figure by figure, the varied attitudes of a group of men seated at a table as they react to a spoken announcement. One leaves his goblet and turns his head to the speaker; another twists his fingers together with knitted brows; another opens his palms, raises his shoulders and makes a face of astonishment; one whispers in a neighbour's ear while that man holds a knife and half-cut bread; another, turning, overturns a goblet on the table. The passage is a written scheme of gestures and expressions for a group composition.
On this page
A catalogue of contrasting gestures and expressions
Each figure is characterised by a distinct pose and expression: turning the head, weaving the fingers with stern brows, raising the shoulders to the ears with a mouth of wonder, twisting to lend an ear, or spilling a goblet in the act of turning. The description isolates hands, brows, shoulders and mouth as carriers of emotion.
A written scheme for a group at table
The note plans the reactions of several figures around a table responding to a speaker, coordinating drinking, whispering, gesturing and the handling of knife and bread into a single dramatic moment. It reads as a compositional programme worked out in words before drawing.