2 new exhibits on Lincoln in the nation's capital
If Abraham Lincoln belonged to a more remote historical era, there would no doubt be conspiracy theorists like those who bedevil Shakespeare scholarship, claiming there was no way Abe Lincoln was really Abe Lincoln. Surely no one from the backwoods could write so well, master the art of politics and persuasion, marshal armies to victory and leave such a permanent imprint on American life.
But in a wonderful and slightly creepy way, Lincoln's physicality is ever with us, in daguerreotypes, life and death masks, bloodstained clothing and myriad talismanic reminders of the 19th-century fascination with the body. And yet, as two very different new exhibitions devoted to Lincoln demonstrate, the physicality of Lincoln is, in many ways, a distraction. Because the real Abraham Lincoln was fashioned from words, and the Lincoln we live with now -- the monumental, oversize, heroic Lincoln -- was forged from the equally intangible stuff of myth.
The two shows -- "With Malice Toward None," a Library of Congress exhibition organized to mark the 16th president's birth bicentennial, and "Designing the Lincoln Memorial: Daniel Chester French and Henry Bacon," now open at the National Gallery -- couldn't be more different. The former, which includes almost all the major Lincoln documents, is essential viewing even for people who've already hit the wall with too many Lincoln celebrations. The latter, tucked into a section of hallway at the National Gallery, is a tiny exhibition devoted to two very large objects: the original design model for the Lincoln Memorial by architect Henry Bacon, and the large plaster cast of the seated Lincoln (by sculptor Daniel Chester French) used to model the statue that now dominates the memorial. But the two shows work well together. One is a powerful lesson in Lincoln's self-creation through the mastery of language and rhetoric, while the other offers tangible evidence of his posthumous re-creation as the chief eminence in the American pantheon.
Read entire article at WaPo
But in a wonderful and slightly creepy way, Lincoln's physicality is ever with us, in daguerreotypes, life and death masks, bloodstained clothing and myriad talismanic reminders of the 19th-century fascination with the body. And yet, as two very different new exhibitions devoted to Lincoln demonstrate, the physicality of Lincoln is, in many ways, a distraction. Because the real Abraham Lincoln was fashioned from words, and the Lincoln we live with now -- the monumental, oversize, heroic Lincoln -- was forged from the equally intangible stuff of myth.
The two shows -- "With Malice Toward None," a Library of Congress exhibition organized to mark the 16th president's birth bicentennial, and "Designing the Lincoln Memorial: Daniel Chester French and Henry Bacon," now open at the National Gallery -- couldn't be more different. The former, which includes almost all the major Lincoln documents, is essential viewing even for people who've already hit the wall with too many Lincoln celebrations. The latter, tucked into a section of hallway at the National Gallery, is a tiny exhibition devoted to two very large objects: the original design model for the Lincoln Memorial by architect Henry Bacon, and the large plaster cast of the seated Lincoln (by sculptor Daniel Chester French) used to model the statue that now dominates the memorial. But the two shows work well together. One is a powerful lesson in Lincoln's self-creation through the mastery of language and rhetoric, while the other offers tangible evidence of his posthumous re-creation as the chief eminence in the American pantheon.