Abraham Lincoln face swap

Where this one comes from

George Peter Alexander Healy painted this in 1869 from sittings he had taken from Lincoln in 1864 and from photographs. The pose comes out of a larger picture Healy had finished the year before, showing Lincoln in conference with his generals on a steamer near the end of the war, listening with his chin in his hand. He lifted the figure out of that scene and made it a portrait on its own, and it has been the thoughtful Lincoln ever since.

What is in the picture

He leans forward out of the dark in a plain black coat and bow tie, with the right hand up and the fingers along the jaw. The light finds the forehead, the knuckles and the white of the shirt and leaves almost everything else in brown. The face is lined and asymmetrical and Healy did not correct either, which matters, because the photographs of the last year of his life show exactly the same and nobody at the time thought it flattering.

When people use it

For listening to a plan you have doubts about. It is the best face here for weighing something up in public, and it suits any long thread you are reading and not answering.

How your face lands in it

The head is at three-quarters with the light across the near cheek, and a hand against the jaw and the beard closing the lower edge. The hand belongs to the painting and does not move, so the gesture is waiting when your face gets there. The lighting is strong and directional — an evenly lit photograph will pick up considerably more shadow on the way through.

Abraham Lincoln — George Peter Alexander Healy, 1869. George Peter Alexander Healy died in 1894, so the painting has been in the public domain for well over a century and a faithful photograph of it gains no new rights. Source

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