Between Temporal and Spiritual Powers: Colonial Diplomacy Associated with the Painting France Bringing Faith to the Huron-Wendats of New France (c. 1666)

Abstract

Preserved in Quebec City, the French canvas entitled France Bringing Faith to the Huron-Wendats of New France, executed around 1666, constitutes a central piece of Canadian art history painted during the French colonial period. Espousing an iconography adapted to the New World, this painting presents an Indigenous figure in its foreground. The man, with a tanned complexion and black hair, whose naked body is dissimulated by a single blue and gold piece of clothing, faces a female character having European features, adorned with noble fabrics and precious jewellery. The scene, set in nature, evokes the grandeur and wilderness of North America. A two-masted French merchant ship floating on the majestic expanse of water reinforces this impression. This painting, obviously, illustrates the Europeans’ arrival on this territory in the seventeenth century, and the encounters between the French and Indigenous peoples. However, the representation is also rich in motifs that are likely to attract attention and curiosity: the mise en abyme (the painting within the painting), the celestial figures, and the coat of arms at the bow of the vessel constitute such examples. In this regard, the research studies of our Canadian art history predecessors – to which we are indebted – have enabled us to, first, retrace the painting’s history and, second, clarify its interpretive elements in relation to the spiritual and contextual dimensions specific to New France, in order to shed light on some of its well-kept secrets.