Image analysis of Peter Doig's painting, 'Grasshopper'

Image Analysis - Peter Doig’s Painting “Grasshopper” 1990

displayed at The Saatchi Gallery, London.

Peter Doig’s (born 1959, Trinidad), painting is based on the viewpoint of the Grasshopper, an (often small) and curious insect (classified in taxonomy in the group Orthoptera and sub-order Caelifera). They can be solitary in some species, or change behaviour to group in massive swarms when breeding (often referred to as Locusts, but a species is only a “true” locust if it changes colour in the breeding season).

The painting is divided into thirds, (in a way, Doig may have been tipping his hat to John Thomas Smiths' 1897 writings about Joshua Renolds; - The rule of thirds in artistic composition).  In essence Doig is representing the ultimate layers of viewable space, but from an unfamiliar perceptual perspective.

The top third of the painting represents a potential view of the cosmos, (the universe in which we all live) and is textured with very dark blues and grey cloudy areas with an underlying randomness of white (like star-light) training through.  It should help to make a viewer contemplate their place in our galaxy.

The centre third of the painting is the most humanly recognisable feature, based on a typical view of a north american landscape, albeit this one appears to be somewhere in the American desert, such as might be found in California, Nevada or Arizona.  With further scrutiny, one can pick out a contemporary style, though with a Hispanic influence, via the large farmstead building in the centre, with potential outbuildings to the left-hand side. There also appears to be a number of cypress trees in the painting, which tend to be a popular adornment, especially in California.   What appears to be a post 1960s petrol pump also strengthens the american connection.

I suggest this is a farm because of the depiction of a small tractor unit on the centre right of the painting.  It is difficult to date the intended era of the picture, although there are some clues that it is likely to be post 1950, due to the appearance of a round-winged motor-vehicle housed in a out-garage typical of that period.  There is also a telegraph cable cutting the picture almost in half, crossing the field of view totally from left to right.  Doig paints a scene of Earth in a slightly desolate way, suggestive of an ‘alien’ connection (viz. Roswell, 1960s ‘incident’ / Arizona), but refers to the overwhelming human presence through the buildings, telegraph wires, and finally a human figure on the mid right.

The lower third of the painting appears to be a representation of the Earth's strata, with various layers of colour, (all with earth tones), and what appears to be a lattice like quality and texture of rocks and soil built up over the eons of time.

Overall, the painting evokes in me a sense of “lost” time. What I mean by that is, that it gives the feeling of ‘time’ not being important.  I would assume that this would be true through the eye of a grasshopper too.  You can almost hear the quietness of the place, save for the chirping of a neighbouring grasshopper, and maybe a transistor radio quietly playing distantly in the garage…  Viewing the painting through the eye of another observer is a particularly interesting concept.  It allows the human viewer to contemplate the world from a different viewpoint altogether.  It makes you feel that you are looking at a detached view of this scene, - more than from afar; indeed from a different set of eyes altogether.

From an aesthetic sense, the colours are very harmonious.  All primary colours have been used and yet the subtle mixing and banding of colours invokes the coldness of outer space, the glow and warmth and arid feel of a desert place, but then with the cold barrenness of the ancient Earth below its surface.  

I spent some considerable time searching for a painting to analyse that was “painterly”, yet contemporary and highly engaging, that provided an understandable yet different view of our human perception; literally by placing it into another sentient being.  I love this painting for its’ depth of thought and re-adjustment of an everyday scene that could be made from just a blink of an eye of a traveller…. (but a grasshopper’s eye at that)!