Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Praying Hands: A Christian Metaphor, Pamela K. Morris

Pamela K. Morris

Sometime around 1508, when Albrecht Dürer drew a study in silver point on blue paper of a pair of hands praying in Nürnberg, Germany, he could not have thought of the popularity and the mythology that a drawing of upturned hands would inspire some four hundred fifty years later. Praying Hands are now found on candles, funeral cards, lockets, flower planters, place mats, automobile license plates, and water towers. Why? What is it that makes this once mundane image so popular in the 20th century? The co-opting of images happens in advertising all the time, but what about religion? Current …