See the actual picture in colour
This is a scribble in ballpoint after a painting called Grande Rivière by Peter Doig. The
real picture is at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. Doig painted it in 2001-2002 from photographs and memory after a visit to Trinidad
in 2000. The colour is quite vivid, approximating what the actual
colours would be in nature but intensified and peculiar, especially the
strange deep blue of the foreground water. Most striking to me are the
dense background vegetation, the sickly ghostly coconut tree on the
right about to keel over and die (its fronds have lost their spring and
curl and are hanging straight down), and the dejected white pony at mid
left surrounded by a flock of corbeaux (vultures). It’s not clear
whether it’s day or night – what looks like a night sky at upper left
could be more dense vegetation on a hill in the distance. To me the
painting has a threatening feeling, reminding me of scenes from
Conrad’s tropical short stories which usually ended tragically, with
the tropical surroundings and people bringing out the main character’s
fatal flaw. I’ve often felt that Conradian feeling in the Caroni swamp but not at Grande Rivière. But then I’ve only been there once.
It might be an ordinary landscape except for:
- the size (about 7 feet by 12 feet)
- the strange colour
-
the corbeaux, common in the area, which give the picture a spooky
atmosphere, clustered as they are around the pony.
Compared
to Neo Rauch’s paintings, in which everything is grossly weird and
bizarre, Peter Doig’s piece is just a little off, just a little strange
and disconcerting. I can’t say if I like it or not, but I find it intensely fascinating.
More about the painting and Peter Doig at the National Gallery of Canada website
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