la main de quintilien

"Gestures have always held an important place in the art of rhetoric. The hands accompany and sometimes express more than words can convey; it is an art of speaking with the hands. The first writings emphasizing the importance of this art date back to Antiquity, with Cicero and Quintilian, who each wrote a series of texts on what the ideal orator should be.
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From the Quattrocento onwards, artists such as Marco d’Oggiono and Botticelli began to represent, in their portraits, gestures that can be found described in Quintilian’s Institution of the Orator, where he devotes long developments to the posture of the orator, to his way of standing and moving according to the context of the speech, and to the importance of gestures, which mobilize the whole body."

publication / 2025


graphic design : Emma Chevillot-Versini

Project carried out as part of the  Édition et Narration (Signes et Symboles) course presented by Roxane Jubert at the ENSAD of Paris

This book seeks to find parallels between Quintilian's work, The Institution of the Orator, and a selection of paintings that provide a more or less precise interpretation of the gestures he describes. After consulting the excerpts from Quintilian's work, it is up to the reader to determine how they interpret the works.