Given the limited time I have in the UK I have focused in on the period of late 19th C and early 20th C European artists that particularly interest me, as outlined earlier in my artists statement and questions and answers documents. This is also a painting era closely observed by Peter Doig and the Courtauld

Courtauld Gallery London

The Morgan Stanley Exhibition: Peter Doig

My trip to the UK WEEK 1

Visit 1 to the Courtauld to see Peter Doig exhibition

fig 1
Night Studio 2015 (detail)
Oil paint on canvas

His self portrait ’Night Studio’ fig 1 above shows him standing in front of his own painting ‘Stag’ (2002-05) adopting the pose of the man in that work who clings to a tree. The painting gives a sense of how Doig’s work feeds into one another, the process of painting undertaken as a continuous journey.

Pentimenti - the leaving of marks made previously - as seen in Monet for example.
Gesture - Daumier especially

this work is Reminiscent of Gaugin’s The Dream fig 2 in the adjoining room to the Doig exhibition, Doig drew much inspiration from these painters. The scene behind the 2 women could be a doorway to the vista beyond or possibly one of Gauguin’s paintings propped up behind them.

In his Self Portrait Fernandes Compound, Doig (fig 3) uses pigment as a stain on the canvas, covering large areas with thin washes and building up others with denser opaque brushwork.

Fig 3
Self Portrait (Fernandes Compound )
2015-23

The preceding large room shows many great works from the 19th C France impressionists and post impressionists, I can see the influences these works have had upon Doig’s work, and in particular notice many details and techniques or rather accents and emphasis that he has chosen to use in his work. see below.

Boating, music, travel, solitude, exploration, the resonance and vibrations in nature echoing off the canvas, in light and colour filled emotions. Doig’s people are often still, ancient Greek-like in their stature and pose. fig 4

Echoes of the Kouros figures beloved by Bonnard amongst others, not representing individual youth but the idea of youth.fig 5

Statement from the Courtauld…

The subject matter as well, the lone person in nature found in Suerrat for example and many others.fig 6

fig 6
Georges Seurat (1859-1891)
The Angler c.1884
oil paint on wood

As a painter I can clearly see the kind of detail that has caught Dogs attention from this collection. See below the treatment in the hats in Manets and Doug subsequent work. fig 7&8