Few foreheads in our cultural imagination imply as much as Patrick Stewart’s. This is doubly impressive because he lodged himself in said imagination with his role as Jean Luc-Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation, a show replete with foreheads (Klingon, Romulan, Ferengi, even Borg) flashier than his. However, the Stewart Forehead, like all things of utter refinement, is not singular for its glitz, but rather for its insinuations.
The student of the Stewart Forehead will quickly note that there are three distinct regions. Each projects its own set of moods.
The Bluff:
The lowest part, it is almost completely vertical. It is reinforced by the shape of Stewart’s skull around the temples, very concave, giving the Bluff a jutting appearance, bold, indomitable. The Bluff is associated with: aggression, decisiveness, confidence, and anger.
The Slope:
This is the midsection. It has a gentle grade, running from the top of the Bluff about three quarters of the way back along Stewart’s head. The Slope’s chief traits: deliberation, thoughtfulness, multilateralism, vulnerability, and bargaining.
The Peak:
Rises suddenly out of the top of the Slope. Its pointedness can surprise one. The Peak’s characteristics: philosophical contemplation, aplomb, spirituality, and sentimentality.
The glory of the Stewart Forehead is the way that different regions take precedence depending on the angle from which it’s viewed. Straight on, the Bluff dominates:
Here, the Captain is in full command. (Note that although the Peak is implied in the frontal view, it only reinforces the self-assuredness of the Bluff.) But when viewed from an oblique angle, The Slope asserts itself:
Suddenly, his visage implies a political diplomacy absent from the frontal view. Finally, when seen in profile, the Peak comes into its own:
Here, the Stewart Forehead reassures you: you can trust him because he’s scaled the heights himself.