Abidin Dino spent a large part of his life drawing hands. For him, hands were a portrait in themselves, often even a self-portrait. People's faces could be beautiful, ugly, charming, or otherwise; but their hands were always beautiful. Dino made drawing hands his profession. One day, while drawing hand pictures, when he progressed from large-handed creatures to hands that seemed to draw themselves, even the hand he was drawing became alien to him; he became afraid of what he had drawn. Of course, he was able to overcome this fear; however, he never dared to draw the entire hand, sometimes only the fingers worked. For him, painting, and especially drawing hands, was summarized in this sentence, which he quoted Engels: "What else is the urge to paint but to leave a mark? Everything began with hands, and will end with hands."
In Dino's "Hand Series," the large-handed figures seem to have a separate character, independent of the figure itself. It's as if the hand isn't merely an element of the body, but a being that directs it; a separate entity with its own thoughts and consciousness. In these drawings, which approach caricature, Dino uses lines continuously and fluidly, without interruption. The lines are not used to add three-dimensionality to the image or to create shadows; they are used to create expression, sometimes with clear and calm forms, and sometimes with exaggerated details. The exaggeration in his drawings, while noticeable in the hands of the figure—in the sense of being depicted as larger than they are—is actually present throughout the entire anatomy, to reinforce the content.
The imagery carried by the hands is rich. Our hands, which become free and skillful with our first steps, and what our hands create—that is, labor—are among the greatest elements that enable our humanization. Undoubtedly, this is also true for Dino: "Are my finger arrangements a detachment from vital realities, or an attempt to deeply capture those realities?" When Dino draws hands, he doesn't just draw an anatomical element; Knowing the significance of the hand for humanity, he also seeks the traces of this history in hands: “I’ve never liked inconsistencies, especially when it comes to fingers, the thumb, for example. Who chose the thumb? Or look at the self-satisfied index finger; how bigoted, how dogmatic, how excommunicating bigoted.”
In his self-portrait, which he made with simple and exaggerated lines, he creates expression not only with his face but also with his enormous hands, which he never neglects to add. He uses his hands as an element that is at least as defining as his face. Hands, which have always stood out as an important part of the portrait in art history, are indispensable in Dino.
Abidin Dino finds life in hands. For him, life is, as Asaf Güven Aksel said in that beautiful article he wrote on the 27th anniversary of Dino’s death, “cooperation”[2]. Dino sees the salvation of the country in cooperation, that is, in the commune. His communist and artistic ideology, emanating from the many things he accomplished in his life, can be summarized as follows: He was born in Istanbul in 1913. At just 17 years old, his drawings were published in newspapers and magazines. At 20, he was among the founders of the D Group, one of the first contemporary art initiatives in the country. At 21, he went to the Soviet Union to study filmmaking, where he stayed for three years, working with Eisenstein and Yutkevich. After leaving the Soviet Union, he went to London and Paris; settling in Paris at 24. He befriended important figures such as Gertrude Stein, Tristan Tzara, and Pablo Picasso. At 26, he returned home; he mostly painted laborers and became a member of the Turkish Communist Party. At 28, he participated in the founding of the Yeniler Group. He attended the opening of the groundbreaking Port Exhibition with paintings of dockworkers; in the same year, for political reasons, he was exiled first to Çorum and then to Adana. He wrote plays; they were confiscated. He wrote screenplays; they were banned. At the age of 39, after the travel ban against him was lifted, he settled in Paris, where he lived until his death; in Paris, he participated in the activities of the TKP's Foreign Bureau. He received important awards throughout his life. He passed away in Paris at the age of 80.
In the final years of his life, Abidin Dino's artistic endeavors were again focused on hands. Six months before his death, he was able to attend the opening of the "Solidarity Monument," designed by Metin Deniz based on Dino's hand drawings and cast in bronze by Yunus Tonkuş, which was erected in Maçka, where Dino spent his youth. A year after his death, a statue of Abidin Dino, created by Metin Yurdanur, was erected in Kadıköy Özgürlük Park. In the statue, Dino's hands are so meaningful and expressive that they reflect the imagery of life he found in hands.
Abidin Dino's style reminds us of the same thing today: what makes us human are the hands that work together. Therefore, Dino's 'collective work' hands are not just a drawing; they are also a call.
Author: Fide Lale Durak / Painter