The article explains the aesthetic element of the hand in the artworks of Slovenian regionalist painter Ive Šubic (1922–1989). It elaborates the reasons why the author believes that Šubic’s work was a unique combination of regionalism and partisan art. During his professional life, after he participated in the partisan uprising against occupational forces in WW II, Šubic was considered a genuine partisan painter. He was highly praised by the Communist establishment, and he received several prestige awards. However, after the middle of the 1950s, when he slowly and quietly withdrew from the public life, he gradually became nostalgic. The hands on his paintings and public murals, portrayed as overworked hands with thick fingers and knuckles affected by hard farm work, are the central link between Šubic’s experiences of war and his perception of the once genuine experience of rural life in Poljane Valley, lost for good.
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