| OCR Text |
Show 38 available to Vogel. There are three basic components of the image of Tableau 27: those figures used as background-generic filler of undeveloped figures used merely to intensify the circular movement of the composition and to give it a feeling of mass and depth; those figures that are more developed and which appear in the original sketches; and several highly refined and precise portraits, reproduced from watercolors made at various times during the winter at Fort Clark, that are placed at the outer edges of the circle as observers to the dance. Each of these separate components shows progressively higher levels of individuation and detail. It is most likely that Vogel, under Bodmer's direction, started at the inside of the composition, working outward as the image developed. The figures found in the original sketches are used to develop the core of the circular composition and it is this central grouping upon which the documentary value of the aquatint must depend. At the very center the wife of the Minnetaree chief Itsichaika, wearing the white buffalo robe described by Maximilian, holds the pole from which the magpie and scalp are suspended. She and the three figures to her right repeat the grouping found in Bodmer's reference sketch (Figure 2.2). In the aquatint, costumes and face painting are reproduced with more definition and the faces themselves are individualized for the first time.^ in the preliminary sketch of the dance (Figure 2.1) a second pole, also described by Maximilian, can be seen. This pole does not appear in Bodmer's reference sketch (Figure 2.2). However, it is reproduced in the aquatint, evidence that at least some information, lost in the reference sketch, |
