Branding for Melancholy

Since I brought Lincoln up in my previous post, a brief hiatus from my usual digital rhetoric soapbox seems in order for one of my non-virtual heroes from traditional American oratory. Having recently seen the state-sponspored blockbuster show on melancholy in France, I couldn't help but notice that the Great Emancipator is often painted or photographed in the conventional downcast pose of melancholy, unlike many famous and powerful men. This makes the holiday gussying up of Lincoln at the White House even more incongruous.