> Cool art history pertinent to this:
>
> "...such a study may help us to break out of the fruitless opposition
> between "rationalism" and "irrationalism.":
>
> http://www.cch.kcl.ac.uk/legacy/teaching/av1012/Ginzburg,%20Clues.pdf
Pretty damned interesting, but waay too long. I'll finish it later. I hope he gets to the part of how this sort of identification arises when you study and draw the figure. Most students develop a repertoire for these finishing details. For hands and feet I did a lot of studies of Michelangelo because I liked his hands and feet, the feet because they seemed to carry weight the way a real foot does, and the hands because they seem so competent, capable. Forget his women. Had to go with somebody else, a group who I forgot.
There are other things to mention, the sense of signature, how the hand moves in its learned path over many practices. It usually contains the kind of line the person likes to make. This was what Gehrty's drawings were so handy to figure out what he was doing. De Kooning and Pollock did a lot of this kind of drawing. Sometimes it's called gesture drawing when it relates to the figure.
I used to prefer studying the drawing for paintings and sculpture more than the finished work, because you could better see what was going on in the mind of the artist. Rembrandt drew constantly, working out poses, shapes, people. even dogs, doorways, etc. It's a good habit to get into.
CG