The Real Faces Of The U.S. Founding Fathers And Other Famous Historical Figures

Today, we live in a digital world where we see almost everything in high definition. When future scholars look back at us, there will be little left to their imagination. State of the art is getting so advanced that we often find ourselves questioning our own eyes. Is it real, or is it someone's computer-generated enhancement or outright fantasy? This may be the big problem future historians face looking back at us.

Now let's rewind some two-hundred-fifty years to the founding of the United States and our country's formative early years, and we have a similar problem. What did the founding fathers and other early historical figures really look like? Can we say for sure? The more popular is primarily known from their engraved portraits as they appear on our paper money through history. However, we primarily know them and others by the surviving engravings, drawings, paintings, and sculptures housed in our museums and historic sites. But are they accurate? Or, do they suffer from "artistic license" and "sympathetic treatment" commonly employed by many contemporary portrait artists?

Before photography, the art form of the life mask was the best way to create an exact likeness of an individual. Basically, plaster would be applied to the head and sometimes upper torso to create a mold from which a life mask or bust of the person could be cast. This would result in a three-dimensional, faithful transfer capturing the true likeness of the subject in minute detail. Thanks to the work of sculptors John Henri Isaac Browere and Jean-Antoine Houdon, we have a variety of life masks of famous early Americans giving us the chance to see their true likeness.

Despite its high definition minute detail, the only drawback to the life mask is that they were cast in original plaster or bronze, which are both low definition monochromatic mediums. This is not so appealing in the modern Technicolor world. This is where my special touch comes into play. By merging the best of the past with today's best, I have created artworks that blend the life mask with the digital world. After completing detailed forensic/academic studies of how the subjects most likely appeared in relation to flesh, hair, eye color, and other details, I use Adobe Photoshop to bring the life masks to life.

My site features these reconstructions plus animations of these life masks along with a bit of history and how the subjects might have looked in daguerreotypes and photographs. I hope that viewers will now get the chance to see the American founding fathers' true likeness: George, Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and many other historical figures.

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