What Did The Founding Fathers Really Look Like? Life Mask Reconstructions of the Founding Presidents

What did the founding fathers look like? Can we know for sure?

We primarily know them and others by the surviving engravings, drawings, paintings and sculptures housed in our museums and historical 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 in minute detail the true likeness of the subject.

Thanks to the work of sculptor’s 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. Featured here are the RECONSTRUCTED life masks and more of George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison.

Have camera, will travel. Take a trip back in time and enjoy seeing the REAL faces of these historic figures.

▬About Digital Yarbs ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

I'm a Photoshop composition artist who enjoys history. I reconstruct life masks, statues and busts of famous early Americans and historic figures.
Using life masks, I completed a forensic/academic study of how the subjects most likely appeared using Adobe Photoshop to add flesh, hair, and other details. My website, Digital Yarbs features reconstructions and animations of these life masks along with a little history and how the subjects might have looked in daguerreotypes and photographs.

To understand what these historic figures really looked like we cannot rely on paintings as 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 in minute detail the true likeness of the subject.

Website: https://yarbs.net/

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