Rebecca of the Yale University School of Art writes:

It is something cartoonists do but can never explain. Setting aside for the moment props like FDR’s cigarette holder or Charley Chaplin’s bowler and cane, cartoonists with only facial attributes to go on simultaneously minimize and exaggerate what they see to make people instantly recognizable. We can see it has nothing to do with Vignony like markings or points of congruence and everything to do with artistic genius. Ask yourself how it is we recognize these four presidents.

I don’t know and neither do you.

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Ask yourself how it is it that we know the sculpture in a dried up apple looks like Jack Nicholson as the Joker. Is it the great lips, the eyes, points of congruence or some Vignony like markings? It is something no one can explain. 

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The artists of early Christianity portrayed Jesus based on something. Maybe it was the Shroud which is what I think. I can’t explain why, however. One thing I am sure of though, you can’t claim anything based on a fake scientific method like points of congruence. There is no such method for matching faces.

Note: The examples were attached to an email. I resized them and inserted them into the email where it seemed appropriate.