Abstractions

The most difficult thing about this painting has been the complexity of the clothing. In the mission village of Kahnawake, the Mohawk and Huron populace wore garments acquired through trade with the French. The blouses and shirts would have fit very loosely. Clothing my models in similar garments helps me to better capture the period look, but billowing fabric can easily obscure the shape of the figure. For it to make sense in a painting, the complex folding and twisting of the garment has to be simplified into something relatable. In the image above you can see how the painting is developing, and how I use the underdrawing and dead-coloring to highlight the key forms in the fabric.

That process of simplification is called abstraction. The term typically calls to mind cubist paintings by Braque and Picasso, or non-objective works by Hans Hofmann, but it encompasses a wide spectrum of work. Proponents of Abstract Expressionists Pollock and De Kooning argued that the antecedents of their work could be found in the work of Vermeer and Velazquez. That sort of historical continuity was very important in the middle of the 20th century, when art was seen as an "onwards and upward" process, but today it's less important to critics. It is, however, extremely relevant to painters. To be able to identify the key components of a complex form, and abstract them on the canvas is the skill that makes successful representational painting possible.