Michael Leja Explores the Art of Elections

Michael Leja, a history of art professor and chair of the history of art graduate group says today’s standard of hyper-mediatized presidential campaigns started with the United States presidential election of 1840, the first in which images played a significant role.

Leja studies the visual arts in various media, including painting, sculpture, film, photography, prints and illustrations, from the 19th and 20th centuries.

His work focuses on understanding art in relation to contemporary cultural, social, political and intellectual developments. It also examines the nation’s presidential past through visual artifacts, including the image campaign of 1840 that introduced the use of lithographs, wood engravings and other eye-catching elements.

Even without mass media as we know it today, Leja says that once people realized the political power of pictures back in 1840, presidential campaigns have not been the same since.

In that year, the Whig party mobilized a mass following for its candidate, William Henry Harrison, including the widespread production of images, which were widely distributed and created an image for Harrison through words and pictures.

“Pictures served to fabricate an attractive persona for Harrison,” Leja says, “and the party used the developing mass media to make a cult figure of the candidate.”

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