Peixeira sentada 1960

Luis Dourdil made "Peixeira Sentada" with oil on some kind of board, in 1960. Look at how Dourdil builds up form here, in these planes of pale color. It's not exactly cubist, but it uses similar techniques of modelling form from blocks, or facets. It's not about realism, but about the *idea* of a seated fish seller, and of using color to represent light and dark. Look how the white of the top half of the canvas is really the key to the whole painting, reflecting light down to that almost hidden patch of red in the bottom half. It's like a spotlight illuminating the scene from above. It’s this simple gesture that pulls the whole painting together, making it cohere into a single image. Dourdil seems to be in conversation with artists like Picasso, or maybe even Fernand Leger, who used similar techniques of fragmentation in their figurative works. Ultimately, it's a fresh take on portraiture, using the language of modernism to find new ways of depicting the human figure.