Abraham Lincoln, 1858
As a Civil War buff, I’ve always known Abraham Lincoln loomed large on the landscape of the personalities involved. No single person had such an impact on the country as this man. I’ve drawn him just prior to his ascendancy to the office of President. He was still clean shaven and the stress of leading a country torn by Civil War hasn’t ravaged his face, yet. What you see are the lines of experience. Wrinkles created from hard labor as a young man living in an unforgiving wilderness. To me, what stood out in this image was his bright eyes. So many daguerreotypes do not capture the eyes clearly—mainly due to the amount of time an exposure takes. The subject has to sit incredibly still or else blurring occurs. This portrait is remarkable in the clarity of detail around his eyes. Normally, Lincoln’s heavy brow cast shadows over the eyes and you only see dark marbles underneath. Here you can see his eye color is actually quite light and according to contemporaries, his eyes twinkled—particularly when telling a story (which he loved to do). I imagine he’d just finished telling the photographer a joke as he was sitting for this portrait. You can see the humor around his eyes.
