Pictures of Barnard's Lincoln Statue in Cincinnati

A few weeks ago, I wrote a series of posts on the controversies around George Grey Barnard's statue of Abraham Lincoln. This link lists my sources and links to the three previous stories.

In those entries, I relied on pictures from Google searches, but I just now had the opportunity to visit Lytle Park to look at it more closely and take some of my own pictures, including a few close-ups. 

Unfortunately, I was in a bit of a hurry and had my phone, not my camera, so the pictures are not perfect, but still give some good views and angles of the monument. 

I must admit I was struck by how large the statue is.  I knew it was 11 feet tall, but seeing it in-person gave me a better perspective of its height and overall size that no photograph or words can replicate. Also, the friend who visited the statue with me thought it was rather ugly. She even assumed it was of the older Lincoln, near the end of his life, because of the wrinkles in his face (though I quickly corrected her.) 

I can certainly now better see how it can be called ugly - the wrinkles and lines on the face, hands and even clothes are specially noticeable. The hands seem huge and bony, especially the long fingers. Despite this, I still think it is a reasonable representation of the ex-president, at least in how I understand his appearance to have been. He was not a handsome man and this statue does not try to pretend otherwise. 

With my closer view of Barnard's work, I still think it is a fine piece of art, but I now better understand the objections to it, especially the idea of sending a copy to London, than I did previously. 

Placement of hands

Closeup of large hands, fingers

Closeup of face, throat

Closeup of feet

Hands from different angle