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拍品专文
Fruit and Roses on a Table Top sings with the energy of a talented artist undergoing a radical transformation of style and forging a new creative path. Unlike the more muted still life paintings of the preceding decade, Peploe deploys a vibrant palette with controlled energy: curved forms and contours are described with dark, angular outlines; strong directional strokes leave visible raised areas at their edges, and tones change in discrete steps rather than blending smoothly. The more open brushwork of the roses and their looser arrangement instils the work with a sense of life, breaking up the geometric layout of vases which anchors the composition. The colours and forms appear to vibrate in a moiré-like pattern, an effect which is particularly pronounced in the white background and blue tablecloth, which appear far from flat.
For Peploe, June 1912 marked the end of a two-year period spent living in Paris, and the return to Edinburgh, where he set up a new studio at 34 Queen Street. His time in the French capital was revelatory; in a letter to his wife dated April 1911, Peploe wrote that ‘Paris has changed my brain and made me more definite’ (S.J. Peploe, quoted in G. Peploe, S.J. Peploe, 1871-1835, Edinburgh, 2000, p. 39). Paris certainly changed Peploe’s art, allowing him to keep his finger on the pulse of avant-garde painting in the capital. He became a member of the progressive Salon d’Automne and his practice began to display the influence of van Gogh’s restless directional brushwork, as well as the striking combinations of intense colour favoured by Fauvist artists such as Henri Matisse, André Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck. The present work clearly displays these influences, although the palette is more Northern in feel and perhaps does not reach Fauvist levels of intensity; Peploe took care to maximise light in his Queen Street studio, but white washed walls and colourful furnishings could not turn Edinburgh into the South of France. With its oriental ceramics and bold outlines, the work also has a distinct feeling of Japonisme, recalling the ukiyo-e prints which so captivated van Gogh as well as Whistler, who was an important point of reference for fellow Scottish artists including the Glasgow Boys.
The stylistic change of the early 1910s was not well-received by Peploe’s previous representatives at the Scottish Gallery, which had had considerable success with the artist’s early shows but declined to exhibit his new work. Peploe appears to have been undeterred, and did not give in to pressure to return to the old style. In fact his painting was to evolve further as he began to explore Cézanne-esque compositions focused on the geometrical ‘underlying structure’ of the world from around 1918 onwards, when his reputation and commercial success began to grow. Throughout these numerous stylistic evolutions and innovations, what remained constant was Peploe’s devotion to still life painting and the pursuit of perfection within the genre. In 1929, 17 years after the painting of this work, Peploe still felt that he was only scratching the surface of the genre, writing ‘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, quoted in S. Cursiter, Peploe: An Intimate Memoir of the Artist and his Work, Edinburgh, 1947, p. 73).
For Peploe, June 1912 marked the end of a two-year period spent living in Paris, and the return to Edinburgh, where he set up a new studio at 34 Queen Street. His time in the French capital was revelatory; in a letter to his wife dated April 1911, Peploe wrote that ‘Paris has changed my brain and made me more definite’ (S.J. Peploe, quoted in G. Peploe, S.J. Peploe, 1871-1835, Edinburgh, 2000, p. 39). Paris certainly changed Peploe’s art, allowing him to keep his finger on the pulse of avant-garde painting in the capital. He became a member of the progressive Salon d’Automne and his practice began to display the influence of van Gogh’s restless directional brushwork, as well as the striking combinations of intense colour favoured by Fauvist artists such as Henri Matisse, André Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck. The present work clearly displays these influences, although the palette is more Northern in feel and perhaps does not reach Fauvist levels of intensity; Peploe took care to maximise light in his Queen Street studio, but white washed walls and colourful furnishings could not turn Edinburgh into the South of France. With its oriental ceramics and bold outlines, the work also has a distinct feeling of Japonisme, recalling the ukiyo-e prints which so captivated van Gogh as well as Whistler, who was an important point of reference for fellow Scottish artists including the Glasgow Boys.
The stylistic change of the early 1910s was not well-received by Peploe’s previous representatives at the Scottish Gallery, which had had considerable success with the artist’s early shows but declined to exhibit his new work. Peploe appears to have been undeterred, and did not give in to pressure to return to the old style. In fact his painting was to evolve further as he began to explore Cézanne-esque compositions focused on the geometrical ‘underlying structure’ of the world from around 1918 onwards, when his reputation and commercial success began to grow. Throughout these numerous stylistic evolutions and innovations, what remained constant was Peploe’s devotion to still life painting and the pursuit of perfection within the genre. In 1929, 17 years after the painting of this work, Peploe still felt that he was only scratching the surface of the genre, writing ‘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, quoted in S. Cursiter, Peploe: An Intimate Memoir of the Artist and his Work, Edinburgh, 1947, p. 73).