Pewter Jug and Pears

Pewter Jug and Pears showcases the considered approach to colour and composition that rendered Peploe’s still life paintings of the mid 1920s as the most esteemed and sought after works of his oeuvre. His obsession with painting the perfect still life transformed the genre to a status that defined not only his own work, but the entirety of Scottish modernism. ‘It was an unfashionable thing to do in the first half of the 20th Century, and would be an inconceivable way for a painter to forge a reputation today. But a few artists are so obsessively single-minded, and mine a narrow field with such virtuosity, subtlety and individuality, that conservatism becomes radicalism’ (Exhibition review, Financial Times, 9 November 2012). In a letter dating from 1929, Peploe is quoted saying ‘there is so much in mere objects, flowers, leaves, jugs, what not – colours, forms, relation – I can never see the mystery coming to an end’ (S.J. Peploe, private correspondence, 1929).

The early Dutch masters saw the still life genre as a means to a greater naturalism, but Peploe saw it as a means to develop his full-bodied painting style, which, by the mid 1920s, was fully formed. The more fluid approach that Peploe exemplified in earlier works such as The Coffee Pot, c. 1905 (private collection; sold in these Rooms, 26 May 2011, lot 85), where a greater focus was on the tonal graduations of his subject, was replaced by a more mature, structured technique. Peploe’s sophisticated colour practice allowed him to translate the form of the objects in front of him into a pattern of flattened picture planes, defined by a change in hue rather than relying mostly on tone. This is especially evident in the handling of the pears and the drapery in Pewter Jug and Pears. In turn, the work demonstrates the significant influence Peploe found in the work of French avant-garde artists, in particular, the work of Cézanne whose focus on an underlying structure was of great inspiration to Peploe.

Walter Sickert, who had been invited by Alexander Reid to write an introduction to the catalogue of the 1925 Scottish Colourists exhibition at the Leicester Galleries in London, had a high opinion of these new paintings. He commented, ‘In his earlier work Mr Peploe had carried on a certain kind of delicious skill to a pitch of virtuosity that might have left to mere repetition, and his present orientation has certainly been a kind of rebirth. He has transferred his unit of attention from attenuated and exquisite gradations of tone to no less skillfully related colour. And by relating all his lines with frankness to 180 degrees of two right angles, he is able to capture and digest a wider field of vision than before. And time, as the poet sings, is an important element in the gathering of roses. And it is probably for this reason that, obviously beautiful as was Mr Peploe’s earlier quality, his present one will establish itself as the more beautiful of the two’ (W.R. Sickert, quoted in exhibition catalogue, Scottish Colourists, London, Leicester Galleries, 1925).

The unfinished seascape on the verso of the canvas serves as a reminder of the connection Peploe found between his landscape painting and the still lifes he made in his Edinburgh studio. Between 1920 and 1934, Peploe visited the island of Iona, located on the western coast of Scotland, almost every year to join his fellow colourist F.C.B. Cadell. Peploe was applying the same analytical mind he took to still life painting, and started to treat his landscapes with the same systematical approach. Preferring to paint towards the north of Iona with views across the water towards Ben More, the countless renditions of this scene highlight Peploe’s search for the perfect composition. The trips to Iona forced Peploe to reconsider the colour palette of his earlier works. A mature and complex understanding of colour theory is embodied in his more subtly toned later works and his still lifes, which contrasts with the higher pitched use of colour that he used to depict the greyness of Scotland. The absence of bold primary colours does not leave these paintings without flare, but the presence of subtle nuances of colour articulates a confidence for which the artist is justifiably renowned.