The Semiotics of Abraham Lincoln
Portraiture, as an artistic and political practice, has always existed at the intersection of representation and power. From the carefully constructed oil portraits of European monarchs, designed to project divine right and dynastic continuity, to the austere, democratic images of nineteenth-century statesmen, the portrait defines how authority appears. Abraham Lincoln’s image, captured in the nascent age of photography, bridges a profound transformation in this practice. With the emergence of photography in the nineteenth century, the medium of portraiture underwent a democratizing turn: the painted portrait—exclusive, interpretive, and singular—gave way to the photograph, a medium that was mechanical, reproducible, and seemingly objective.
Portraiture, as an artistic and political practice, has always existed at the intersection of representation and power. From the carefully constructed oil portraits of European monarchs to the austere, democratic images of nineteenth-century statesmen, the portrait defines how authority appears. Abraham Lincoln’s image bridges the transformation of portraiture from painted art to mechanical reproduction. His likeness, familiar yet layered with symbolic meaning, became a site where the American nation saw and invented itself. The semiotic dimension of Lincoln’s portraiture lies not merely in its mimetic accuracy but in its ability to generate myth and ideology, to render visible the moral authority of democracy itself.
Photography emerged as a technological marvel in 1839, promising scientific precision and objectivity. Yet the photograph, as theorists like Roland Barthes and John Tagg have argued, is never neutral: it is a coded sign within systems of meaning and power. The daguerreotype and the albumen print embodied both the mechanical truth of the lens and the cultural conventions of portraiture inherited from painting. The sitter’s pose, the direction of light, the inclusion of props—all were semiotic instruments shaping identity. In this sense, Lincoln’s photographs by Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner, and Anthony Berger exemplify a transitional visual regime, where democracy required its leaders to appear accessible but still embody gravitas.
Yet photography, far from being a neutral recorder, carried forward many of the same symbolic functions, albeit in a new visual language. Lincoln, whose political rise coincided with the technical and cultural maturing of photography, became one of the first modern heads of state to have a widely circulating, mass-mediated image. His likeness, now familiar yet deeply layered with symbolic meaning, became a primary site where the American nation saw and invented itself. His portraits are thus potent acts of visual rhetoric, articulating the moral and political identity of a nation in crisis. They provided a visual grammar for a new kind of power, one that sought to render visible the moral authority of democracy itself.
Early modern portraiture was intrinsically bound to dynastic authority and sacred sanction; its visual codes were those of lineage, wealth, and divine approval. The Enlightenment shifted this visual paradigm, with portraiture beginning to emphasize civic virtue, rational individuality, and intellectual soberness. Photography, announced to the world in 1839, introduced a radical new element: an indexical claim to truth. The photograph was, as early commentators marveled, "nature drawing itself." It was a causal trace, a physical imprint of light reflected from the subject, which gave it a potent, scientific claim to authenticity that no painting could match.
However, as theorists like Roland Barthes and John Tagg have argued, the photograph is never neutral. This new indexical "truth" coexisted with, and was immediately shaped by, the conventional studio theatrics and iconographic traditions inherited from painting. As Charles Sanders Peirce helps us theorize, the photograph operates on multiple semiotic levels simultaneously: it is an index (a causal trace of the sitter), an icon (it bears a resemblance to the sitter), and, through cultural convention, a symbol (it comes to stand for abstract concepts like "leader," "law," or "martyr"). Lincoln’s portraits belong to this complex, transitional moment: a visual regime in which democratic legitimacy, no longer based on bloodline, had to be forged, manufactured, and disseminated through reproducible likeness.
Lincoln Before the Lens: The Construction of an Icon
Between 1846, when he was a little-known congressman, and 1865, the final year of his life, more than a hundred distinct photographs of Lincoln were made by photographers like Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner, Anthony Berger, and others. This remarkable visual sequence charts not only the shocking physical aging of a statesman under the immense strain of civil war but also the deliberate and careful manufacture of public meaning. The visual codes—the sitter's pose, the direction of light, the inclusion or exclusion of props, and the final cropping of the image—evolve to map his transformation from a rustic advocate to a resolute wartime leader and, finally, to a martyred redeemer.
The Brady “Cooper Union” Portrait (1860)
Made on February 27, 1860, just hours before his pivotal address at the Cooper Institute in New York, Mathew Brady’s three-quarter-length portrait is a masterclass in political rhetoric. Lincoln was not yet the Republican nominee; he was a western outsider who many in the East dismissed as gangly and unrefined. The photograph was an essential part of his introduction. Brady’s sparse mise-en-scène frames Lincoln beside a classical column and stacked volumes, conjuring a rich lexicon of republican virtue. The column, a staple of Neoclassical art, signifies the state, institutional continuity, and the constitutional order he sought to uphold. The books represent law, scripture, and the intellectual gravitas expected of a statesman. His hand rests gently upon these texts, a gesture suggesting gentle mastery and intellectual discipline, not tyrannical force.
Brady’s studied simplicity—a neutral backdrop, no heavy curtains—heightens the scene's moral austerity. The portrait's primary achievement was to discipline Lincoln’s lanky frame, which cartoons often lampooned, into a poised, stable, and presidential vertical. The resulting print circulated widely on paper and as cartes-de-visite, contributing significantly to the perception that this prairie lawyer looked presidential.1 Scholars note the profound effect of this image, which seemed to confirm the intellectual weight of the speech he was about to deliver.2
"Gettysburg portrait" (Alexander Gardner, 1863)
This matte collodion print of Abraham Lincoln was captured by photographer Alexander Gardner in his Washington, DC studio on November 8, 1863 — just 11 days before Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address, earning it the nickname "Gettysburg portrait" despite being taken in the capital rather than Pennsylvania. It depicts him in a formal bust portrait, facing directly at the camera with a somber, introspective expression—his mouth set in a straight line, eyes gazing steadily forward, and brows slightly furrowed, conveying a sense of weariness and resolve amid the strains of the Civil War, including recent Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg but also the persistent human toll.
The photograph of Abraham Lincoln depicts him in a formal bust portrait, facing directly at the camera with a somber, introspective expression—his mouth set in a straight line, eyes gazing steadily forward, and brows slightly furrowed, conveying a sense of weariness and resolve amid the strains of the Civil War. His dark hair is parted on the left and appears somewhat tousled at the top, while his full beard is neatly trimmed but shows signs of aging. He wears a black suit jacket, white shirt with a starched collar, and a dark bow tie that's noticeably lopsided, with the right side dipping lower than the left. The black silk bow tie that's characteristically askew (tilted lower on the right side)—a detail stemming from the tie's pre-tied, stiffened design, which was fashionable at the time and appears similarly off-center in several of his portraits.
During the American Civil War, photography had become a significant medium for personal and political portraiture at that time, especially through the work of studios using the wet plate collodion process introduced in the 1850s. Such portraits were often used for public distribution, political promotion, or family keepsakes. The formal presentation and focus on character and gravitas align with the style of portraits taken of national leaders and influential figures of the period. The collar is high and stiff, characteristic of men’s formalwear of that era. The distinctive beard without a mustache (known as a chin curtain or “Shenandoah” beard) was fashionable in the United States during the 1850s–1860s, especially among public figures and intellectuals. The lighting is natural and soft, coming from one side, emphasizing facial structure and depth — a hallmark of 1860s portrait photography. The shallow depth of field keeps the subject sharp while the background fades to a smooth blur. The subject’s upright posture and serious expression are typical of the period, when long exposure times required subjects to remain still.
“Lincoln and Tad” (Anthony Berger for Brady, 1864)
A key image, taken at Brady’s Washington studio on February 9, 1864, by studio manager Anthony Berger, provided a crucial counterpoint to the official, austere portraits. The resulting carte-de-visite captures a moment of startling intimacy: Lincoln, wearing his spectacles, sits with his youngest son, Tad, as they look at a photograph album. This image, which remains the only close portrait of Lincoln wearing glasses and one of the few with a family member, was enormously popular.5 It circulated widely in domestic albums, bridging the public and private spheres and humanizing the commander-in-chief. This was the democratization of the leader’s image in practice. It modeled a republican paternal ideal, reinforcing the nineteenth-century home as a moral theater of citizenship. Semiotic readings of this image reveal its ideological function: in a republic, authority is not dynastic but moral. The image naturalized political authority through the virtue of familial love; the president’s gentle care for his child mirrored the state’s paternal care for its people.6
Thomas "Tad" Lincoln (1853-1871) was the fourth and youngest son of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln. He was known for his rambunctious and unrestrained nature, and shared a particularly close and tender bond with his father, who was very indulgent and found great joy and comfort in his son's presence amidst the immense pressures of the Civil War. Unlike his own stern father, Abraham Lincoln was a doting and permissive parent. He rarely disciplined Tad and often drew the boy into his arms when he interrupted important meetings, to the occasional annoyance of cabinet members. Tad was fascinated by the military and often wore a U.S. soldier's uniform. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton even gave him a courtesy commission as a second lieutenant.
Tad's life was marked by loss. He lost his brother Eddie at age three, his best friend and brother Willie to typhoid fever at age eleven, and his father to assassination when Tad was just twelve. After his father's death, Tad began to grow up, learned to read and write, and became a serious student while living in Europe with his mother. He died at the age of 18 on July 15, 1871, likely from tuberculosis or a related respiratory ailment. He is buried in the Lincoln Tomb at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois, with his father and two of his brothers.
Gardner’s “Cracked-Plate” Portrait (1865)
On February 5, 1865, a mere ten weeks before his assassination, Alexander Gardner photographed Lincoln during his last formal sitting. The war was nearing its end, and the president's face is a map of its toll. During the sitting, one of the glass-plate negatives cracked—likely when it was warmed for the varnishing process—producing only a single surviving print with a jagged, diagonal fissure running across the president's forehead. In this accidental wound, viewers have long read a powerful and tragic premonition. The portrait’s soft focus and the deep shadows under Lincoln's eyes, combined with the fractured emulsion, have been read as an inadvertent memento mori. Here, the photograph’s indexical truth (the physical trace of the sitter) fuses with an accidental indexical mark (the crack) to produce a profound allegory: a nation and its leader, both under mortal strain, both fractured by the violence of war.3 The physical fragility of the medium becomes a metaphor for the fragility of the republic and the mortality of its leader. Often reproduced, this image has become a canonical American image, its material wound functioning as a visual synecdoche for the war’s psychic rupture.4
Abraham Lincoln visibly aged during his presidency, with his face becoming gaunt, deeply lined, and weary between 1861 and 1865, appearing a decade older by the end of the Civil War. This dramatic transformation was due to the immense stress of the war, the loss of over 600,000 lives, and the personal tragedy of his son Willie's death in 1862. The immense pressure of leading the nation through its darkest period, including countless hours poring over reports and visiting battlefields, took a significant toll. The death of his son Willie from typhoid fever in 1862 devastated him and compounded the grief and responsibility he already carried. In contrast to his 1861 inauguration photos, his face in 1865 showed deep wrinkles, hollowed cheeks, and a haunted gaze, reflecting the physical and emotional burden of the presidency.
From Photograph to National Mythmaking
Lincoln's iconography, first established in the photographic studio, was powerfully translated into collective myth through other media, most notably the grand tradition of history painting. Post-assassination reproductions, in particular, shifted the visual code from worldly authority to spiritual sanctity, recasting the president as a suffering redeemer, a "Father Abraham" who died for the nation's sins.
Carpenter’s First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation (1864)
Installed at the U.S. Capitol, Francis Bicknell Carpenter’s vast canvas (108 × 180 in.) is a monumental work of political pedagogy. It stages the cabinet meeting of July 22, 1862, when Lincoln presented the preliminary proclamation. Carpenter labored for months in the White House, meticulously consulting photographs and securing sittings with cabinet members to calibrate physiognomy, pose, and rank. The compositional rhetoric is a form of republican theater: Lincoln is centered, the document in hand, but he is surrounded by his advisors. Seward, as principal advisor, is nearest, while Stanton and Chase anchor the flanks. The painting performs deliberation, asserting that emancipation was not a singular, divine miracle but a rational, collaborative, and legal act—a process of republican governance where law supplants force.7 Mezzotint and lithographic reproductions disseminated the scene nationwide, ensuring that the authorship and process of emancipation assumed a durable and legible visual script.8
Carpenter intentionally arranged the figures to convey a symbolic message. Lincoln is positioned between the two groups representing the radical and conservative elements of his cabinet. On Lincoln's right, the "radical" faction that fully supported the measure—Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton and Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase—is depicted. On Lincoln's left are those who "doubted, or advised delay, or even opposed" the proclamation—Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Interior Caleb B. Smith, Secretary of State William H. Seward, Postmaster General Montgomery Blair, and Attorney General Edward Bates.
The scene captures the moment Lincoln, having already resolved to issue the proclamation, presented the draft to his cabinet not to ask for their advice on the core issue, but for suggestions on the phrasing. Secretary of State William Seward suggested delaying the announcement until after a Union victory on the battlefield to give it greater force, an idea Lincoln accepted. The preliminary proclamation was subsequently issued after the Battle of Antietam in September 1862, and the final proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863.
Healy’s The Peacemakers (1868)
George P. A. Healy’s meditation on wartime strategy, painted after the war, depicts Lincoln in consultation with his top command—Generals Sherman and Grant, and Admiral Porter—aboard the River Queen on March 27, 1865. This meeting, which actually occurred, is reimagined by Healy with a profound allegorical mood. The painting balances documentary ambition (the portraits are based on photographs) with symbolic meaning. Lincoln, illuminated, sits as the serene center of the conference, the moral compass for the military men. Most famously, Healy included an invented rainbow in the background, a detail often noted by scholars as an emblem of divine favor and reconciliation—the biblical promise of "no more water."9 The work’s twentieth-century rediscovery and its prominent installation in the White House shaped the nation’s memory of Lincoln as the avatar of magnanimity at the very edge of victory.10
Norman Rockwell
Abraham Lincoln was Norman Rockwell's favorite American, and appears in several of his most famous paintings. Born in New York City in 1894, Norman Rockwell always wanted to be an artist. At age 14, Rockwell enrolled in art classes at The New York School of Art (formerly The Chase School of Art). Two years later, in 1910, he left high school to study art at The National Academy of Design. Rockwell found success early. He painted his first commission of four Christmas cards before his sixteenth birthday. While still in his teens, he was hired as art director of Boys’ Life, the official publication of the Boy Scouts of America, and began a successful freelance career illustrating a variety of young people’s publications.
In 1943, inspired by President Franklin Roosevelt’s address to Congress, Rockwell painted the Four Freedoms paintings. They were reproduced in four consecutive issues of The Saturday Evening Post with essays by contemporary writers. Rockwell’s interpretations of Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear proved to be enormously popular. The works toured the United States in an exhibition that was jointly sponsored by the Post and the U.S. Treasury Department and, through the sale of war bonds, raised more than $130 million for the war effort. In 1977, Rockwell received the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He died peacefully at his home in Stockbridge on November 8, 1978, at the age of 84.
These artworks, through their nostalgic and humanistic lens, show different facets of Lincoln's life and enduring influence on American values. Norman Rockwell held Abraham Lincoln in the highest possible regard, publicly stating that he considered Lincoln to be the "greatest American" and his "favorite American." This profound admiration was not a passing interest but a central, recurring theme throughout Rockwell's long career. For him, Lincoln was more than just a historical president; he was the quintessential embodiment of American ideals, representing unity, morality, democracy, and the nation's capacity to endure and overcome its most profound trials.
This reverence is most clearly seen in how frequently Lincoln appears in Rockwell's work, more than any other single statesman. Furthermore, many art critics and historians have noted that the central figure in Rockwell's iconic 1943 painting, Freedom of Speech, was intentionally rendered to resemble a young Abraham Lincoln, thereby connecting the everyday American's right to dissent with the legacy of the president who fought to preserve the union that guaranteed such freedoms. The painting portrays a young, blue-collar man, wearing a plaid shirt and a suede jacket, standing to address a town hall gathering. In contrast to the formally dressed, older members of the audience, the humble speaker embodies the universal right to express one's opinion freely. The attendees, though potentially holding different views, are shown listening with quiet respect.
As the United States apprehensively approached World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt listed four American freedoms in his State of the Union address to Congress in 1941. In order to make these abstract ideas more widely understood and appreciated, Norman Rockwell illustrated how these freedoms appear in everyday American life.
Freedom of Speech was the first of a series of four oil paintings, entitled Four Freedoms, by Norman Rockwell. Freedom of Speech was published on the cover of the Post on February 20, 1943, with each of the four paintings appearing in consecutive weeks. The paintings resonated deeply with the American public, effectively translating Roosevelt's abstract ideals into powerful, relatable scenes of everyday life. The blue-collar speaker is shown "standing tall, his mouth open, his shining eyes transfixed, he speaks his mind, untrammeled and unafraid", and his face resembles Abraham Lincoln. According to Robert Scholes, the work shows audience members in rapt attention with admiration of the speaker, who resembles a Gary Cooper or Jimmy Stewart character in a Frank Capra film. The elderly gentleman smiling approvingly to the left of the speaker in the painting is Norman Rockwell himself, a frequent walkon participant in his paintings, famously so, as with the film auteur of that period, Alfred Hitchcock.
Beyond these direct portraits, Rockwell also used Lincoln's image as a powerful symbol. The Long Shadow of Lincoln (also known as Thoughts on Peace on Lincoln's Birthday) (1945), featured in a February 10, 1945 issue of the Saturday Evening Post, connects Lincoln's legacy to the events of the 20th century. The original painting was donated by Rockwell to the Lincoln Memorial Shrine in Redlands, California. The Long Shadow of Lincoln (1945), painted at the end of World War II, a bust of Lincoln casts a protective shadow over a pensive, disabled veteran, suggesting that the nation's sacrifices in the 1940s were part of the same unfinished work Lincoln had begun.
The 1945 painting, alternately titled “The Long Shadow of Lincoln” and “Thoughts on Peace on Lincoln’s Birthday,” is almost unique among Rockwell’s works in that the amount of symbolism present in the piece is uncharacteristic for this quintessential American master. The central focus of the painting is a disabled soldier, newly returned from the battlefield, who is contemplating the challenges of the postwar world. He has sought inspiration in the words of Abraham Lincoln, as exemplified by the open book on his knee. The wounded soldier’s amputated left leg is obscured by the builder with his blueprints, demonstrating Rockwell’s belief that the sacrifice of World War II was not in vein, and that a better, stronger world would be built.
His most famous Lincoln-themed paintings include Lincoln for the Defense (1962), originally a Saturday Evening Post illustration, depicts Lincoln as a young lawyer defending his client, Duff Armstrong, in the famous "Almanac Trial". Rockwell emphasizes Lincoln's stature and dignity by positioning the viewer's perspective at his feet.
Lincoln the Railsplitter (or Young Woodcutter) (1964), commissioned by the Lincoln Savings Bank, this work shows a youthful Lincoln, axe in hand, reading a book as he walks home, playing on the historical "railsplitter" emblem used in his political campaigns. n paintings like Lincoln the Railsplitter (1964), Rockwell captures the dual nature of the man he admired: a strong, humble laborer holding an axe, who is simultaneously a dedicated intellectual, engrossed in a book. This image was Rockwell's way of visualizing Lincoln's "hunger for knowledge" and his rise from poverty through self-education. Similarly, in Lincoln for the Defense (1962), Rockwell depicts the young lawyer in a courtroom, intentionally painting from a low angle to make Lincoln's figure tower over the viewer, emphasizing his inherent stature and dignity.
Rockwell was, for a long time, the most famous and beloved illustrator in America, but he was simultaneously dismissed by the "high art" world as a "mere illustrator" whose work was fundamentally unserious. His work was "socialist realism with American characteristics," as his critics saw his work. Critics saw an "uncanny similarity" between Rockwell's idealized America and the state-sponsored "Socialist Realism" of the Soviet Union. Socialist Realism (in the USSR) was art designed to be realistic, populist, and easy to understand. Its purpose was to promote an idealized vision of the state's values—the heroic factory worker, the happy farmer, the bright future of communism. It was propaganda.
Rockwell's Art (to his critics) functioned in the same way. It was realistic, populist, and promoted an idealized vision of American values—the harmonious town meeting (Freedom of Speech), the perfect Thanksgiving (Freedom from Want), and a conflict-free, white, middle-class world. In this view, his art was just the other side of the same coin: propaganda for American exceptionalism, where all conflicts are minor and are always peacefully resolved.
For decades, the serious art world, led by critics like Clement Greenberg, championed Abstract Expressionism (artists like Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko). This school believed "high art" was about expressing pure emotion, form, and color, not telling a literal story. Rockwell's work was the exact opposite of serious art. It was Narrative: His paintings were "illustrations" that told a clear, simple story, which they considered "kitsch" or "banal." It was Sentimental: He depicted a nostalgic, idealized America—small-town life, wholesome families, kindly doctors—that critics felt was a "cor counterfeit" of reality. It was Commercial: He wasn't painting for a gallery; he was painting on commission for a magazine cover, which in their eyes made it commercial propaganda, not personal expression.
Today, Rockwell is seen as a far more complex figure. His reputation has undergone a massive critical reappraisal. Museums that once shunned him (like the Guggenheim) now host major retrospectives, recognizing his incredible technical skill as a storyteller who evolved from depicting an American ideal (like his paintings of Lincoln) to confronting the often-brutal American reality of trying to live up to that ideal.
The Semiotic Afterlife of Lincoln’s Image
The semiotics of Lincoln’s image extend beyond his lifetime. His face, endlessly reproduced on currency, postage, and statuary, functions as what W.J.T. Mitchell calls a “totem image” — a visual focus for collective identification. The photograph’s indexical truth grounds belief, while its repetition across media transforms it into ideology. In Peircean terms, the photograph is simultaneously icon, index, and symbol: it looks like Lincoln, bears his physical trace, and stands for republican virtue. Foucault’s notion of power as diffuse helps explain why such images persist: in a republic that disavows monarchy, the leader’s face must circulate to sustain legitimacy. The image governs as much as the person it depicts.
To consider the afterlife of Lincoln’s portraiture is to see how the photographic image mediates between history and myth. Each reproduction adds another layer of signification. The Brady portrait endures as the archetype of political dignity; Gardner’s cracked plate, as a meditation on mortality; Berger’s domestic scene, as moral intimacy. These images collectively form a visual narrative of democracy itself—its aspirations, its violence, its faith in moral leadership. The portrait of Lincoln, therefore, is not a single picture but a semiotic system: a web of signs through which America continues to construct the meaning of its own power. His face, endlessly reproduced on currency, postage stamps, and in textbooks, remains a site where the United States reads, and constructs, itself. It functions as what W. J. T. Mitchell calls a "totem image"—a visual focus for collective identification.
The Peircean categories clarify this corpus: the photograph is an index, a physical light-trace that grounds our belief that we are seeing the "real" Lincoln; it is an icon, a resemblance that makes his features familiar; and it is, by convention, a symbol, standing for the Union, democratic virtue, emancipation, and humble strength. Roland Barthes’ notion of the punctum—the pricking, wounding detail that pierces the viewer—has often been located in Lincoln’s careworn eyes, his uneven tie, or the crack in Gardner's plate; these micro-signs of labor, humility, and suffering were amplified in engravings and later interpretations.
Furthermore, Michel Foucault’s notion of capillary power helps explain why these mass-reproduced portraits were so essential. In a non-monarchical republic that disavows the "King's two bodies," authority must be sustained differently. The mass-reproduced portrait, saturating civic space, helps sustain that authority by providing a legible, human face for an abstract state. The image governs as much as the person it depicts.
From Brady’s disciplined settings to Gardner’s wounded emulsion and Berger’s domestic tenderness, the portraits of Lincoln chart a defining passage from aristocratic to democratic images of power—without, however, relinquishing the crucial work that images do in authorizing that authority. Photography’s claim to truth, recruited to the work of politics, helped create not just a record of leadership but the very look of leadership itself. The portrait of Lincoln, therefore, is not a single picture but a vast semiotic system: a web of signs through which America continues to construct the meaning of its own power.
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