OCR Text |
Show 43 Vignette 26, Travellers Meeting at Fort Clark. Ahschupsa Masihichsi is one of the several Indian portraits to be used in separate reproductions.21 The third portrait figure, positioned in the far right foreground, is Sfh-Chida, one of Maximilian's and Bodmer's friends. Based upon a full-length portrait painted in December 1833, "Yellow Feather" can be identified by the beaded hair bows and feather cluster worn on the back of his head.22 Unlike the formal pose of the watercolor, this figure is now animated and his buffalo robe falls open as he leans forward to observe the dance. It is likely that Sfh-Chida was present at both the February and April dances. However, if Tableau 27 is to be judged strictly as an informational document, the presence of Sfh-Chida and of the other portrait figures must be considered only for compositional value, since no references to these Indians appear in Bodmer's original drawings of the ceremony. However, if the criteria used for the analysis of the documentary value of the print can be expanded to include Bodmer's fuller knowledge of the event he had witnessed, it may be understood that art's interpretive function can contribute, rather than interfere with, reportive documentation. One of the most attractive qualities of the original watercolors and sketches in Bodmer's portfolio is the sense of immediacy they convey. Nonetheless, even though the watercolors documenting the ceremony were produced as the event unfolded, they were short detailed glimpses of individual participants. Thus, in the amount of time the ceremony allotted, Bodmer could not produce a document that gave any comprehensive sense of the dance in its entirety. The individual sketches retain a static quality |