Peter Doig - ‘Pictor Doctus’: Painting Solitude From Inner Desire

The “sound” of Peter Doig’s large painting “By a River” (2004) is deep, enigmatic, and distinct. Doig’s paintings never cease to fascinate with their unique resonance; they glow with a mysterious, profound aura. The sensory impressions, visual experiences, and memories that converge within them are highly condensed. Almost all works from Doig’s mature creative phase are characterized by themes of isolation, loneliness, or melancholy—yet not in a negative sense. Instead, they represent an intrinsic need or fundamental human requirement, without which all intellectual—and thus ultimately artistic—creativity would be impossible. Peter Doig, the internationally acclaimed star of figurative painting, is a true master at capturing highly intensified emotions on canvas. Central to this style is a rich repository of memories drawn from his observations, literature, and personal experiences. Doig, who is also regarded as the “Pictor Doctus” of Contemporary Art, seems to absorb an unlimited array of visual experiences and stores them—sometimes for years or even decades—until they finally pour out onto the canvas to become outstanding works like “By a River” (2004), in which numerous layers intertwine. When Doig paints, imagery from art history dating back to the Middle Ages—along with film scenes, photographs, album covers, postcards, memories, impressions of nature, and emotions—merge into a highly condensed, entirely novel whole, in which all elements remain present in a fascinating way. “By a River” (2004) also captivates viewers not only because of its enormous size but, above all, because of its enigmatic motifs and the rich scope for association it offers, compelling them into an intense dialogue and personal exchange with their own images of life, buried deep in their memories.


From Dürer to Doig—Melancholy and Genius: The Lonely Thinker as a Symbol of Artistic Creativity

Doig’s artistic trademarks are solitary landscapes and solitary figures, which—since the 1990s—he has often depicted wandering through his frequently snow-covered, meticulously detailed, and opaquely painted landscapes, evoking art-historical references ranging from Romanticism—most notably Caspar David Friedrich—to Edward Munch and Edward Hopper. Doig himself has also lived a kind of modern nomadic existence since early childhood: born in Scotland and raised in Trinidad and Canada, Doig experienced not only numerous changes of location but also of culture at a young age, attending a total of nine schools. He subsequently studied art in London. In 1986, he moved back to Montreal, then to London again in 1989, before finally settling with his family in Trinidad for good in 2000. Four years after this latest relocation, he created the painting “By a River” (2004) on the Caribbean island. In Trinidad, Doig doesn't just work in his studio at the Caribbean Contemporary Arts Center near the capital, Port of Spain; he also works at his home in the mountains, where he lives and works like a modern hermit—in extreme seclusion, surrounded by and inspired by the dense jungle of Caribbean vegetation. The famous series of prints “Black Palms” was created in Port of Spain in 2004; they feature the first account of the motif of the lonely, crouching, bearded man, which Doig derived from a postcard from India that the artist had purchased many years earlier at a London flea market. Doig himself described his deep fascination with this enigmatic, tiny figure on the postcard with the following words: “The figure with the beard looks like a shaman or a guru, and was about the size of a match head on a postcard among hundreds of others—although it was one of the most isolated figures, it also appeared to be the most enigmatic.” (Peter Doig, Port of Spain, March 2004). That same year, this particular figure inspired him to create the large-format painting “By a River”, in which Doig fused the mysteriously introspective figure—rendered in gently flowing colors—with the surrounding nature and the paint-soaked canvas. But what appeals to Peter Doig so much about the intensive exploration and refinement of this figure? Is it solely its loneliness and isolation, or the clarity and distinctness with which it—especially in light of European art history—stands for intellectual creativity and, by extension, everything that defines our conception of artistic genius, stretching from the Renaissance to the present day? Beginning with Albrecht Dürer’s famous copperplate engraving “Melencolia I” (1514), artistic creation came to be understood not primarily as the result of a technical creative process, but as the essence of an intense intellectual act; consequently, the artist’s intellectual capacity was increasingly equated with the contemplative temperament of the melancholic. “The melancholic, viewed with great skepticism in the Middle Ages, rose to the ranks of a genius, which many—including Dürer—strove for. Melancholy and genius became interdependent. Researchers such as Schuster are right to speak of a ‘hidden self-portrait’ [..]” (R. Schoch/M. Mende/A. Scherbaum, Albrecht Dürer. Das druckgraphische Werk, vol. 1, Munich 2001, p. 183). Does this mean that Doig’s enigmatic composition “By a River,” like Dürer’s “Melancholia I,” is also a hidden self-portrait or an allegorical representation of artistic genius? This is highly likely given the rich visual tradition of the melancholic, introspective thinker, which has its deep roots in the medieval depiction of the hermit and ultimately extends from Dürer’s famous “Melencolia I,” through Salvatore Rosa, Auguste Rodin, and Edward Munch, all the way into the 21st century.


Peter Doig and Duane Allman: Pictorial Samples from “100 Years Ago” to “By a River”

Beyond these aesthetic connections, music also inspires Peter Doig. Doig’s iconic painting “100 Years Ago (Carrera)” (2001, Centre Pompidou, Paris)—which he created three years earlier in Trinidad—also draws on the process of isolating motifs, much like “By a River”. In this case, however, Doig drew inspiration not from a postcard but from an album cover. Doig takes only the central figure— guitarist Duane Allman, who died in a car accident in 1971—from the famous photograph on the inside cover of the posthumously released double album “Duane Allman: An Anthology” (1972), incorporating just one of the six figures depicted in his painting. The canoe, floating aimlessly across the vast expanse of the lake, remains empty; the background no longer shows a rescue shore, but an island that evokes Arnold Böcklin’s painting “Toteninsel” (The Isle of the Dead). With “100 Years Ago (Carrera)”, Doig also succeeded in creating a high-quality composition through the visual superimposition of associations; like the present painting, it is imbued with a sense of oppressive loneliness and modern melancholy. The cover of the album “Duane Allman: An Anthology” shows the legendary guitarist standing contemplatively on a riverbank with a fishing rod, and another famous photograph—also taken as part of this photo series and published in the album’s booklet—shows Allman sitting pensively on a riverbank. Peter Doig—a music enthusiast and avid record collector—had already committed these photos to his formidable visual memory when he created “By a River.” They, too, must have contributed to Doig’s deep fascination with the motif of a lonely man contemplating by the river. While painting “By a River, Doig probably listened to music, as he did so often; whether it was perhaps even Duane Allman’s legendary album remains unknown.

Doig’s magnificent creations masterfully navigate the boundary between reality and dream; time seems to stand still. It is precisely this consistent negation of space, time, and action that creates the enigmatic allure of his paintings. Deeply imbued with contemplative silence, Doig’s paintings suffuse space with their very own magical resonance. [JS].