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拍品专文
This composition is replete with free and fluid brushwork, suggestive of afternoon light playing over a complex array of textures and surfaces. Soft foliage, ripe fruit, crumpled linen, highly polished silver and transparent glass are all handled with economical, painterly gestures. Strong colours and vivid white highlights draw the eye to the spray of tulips, fruit and coffee pot, helping them to sing with life amongst an otherwise restricted palette and silky blacks of the backdrop. A sense of tranquillity pervades the composition, suggestive of the homely disorder after the party has broken up.
1905 marks a creative milestone in Peploe’s early career and his lifelong exploration of the possibilities of still life painting. The present work, along with similarly configured compositions such as The Coffee Pot, circa 1905, (which achieved a then record price for the artist when it was sold in these Rooms in 2011 for £937,250), are the culmination of a number of influences on Peploe’s practice. The artist’s horizons were broadened significantly by his studies in Paris from 1894, and his exposure to the work of Impressionists and Old Masters ranging from Edouard Manet to the Dutch Golden age painter Franz Hals. Reproductions of works by these artists hung in his studio and became an important point of reference for Peploe’s own work. Equally formative were a series of painting trips to northern France made with Peploe’s friend and fellow Scottish Colourist John Duncan Fergusson, where Peploe developed the speed, fluidity and ability to distil scenes to their essence required for painting en plein air.
The present work represents a synthesis of these influences. Peploe acknowledges Manet’s fluid brushtrokes and restricted palette seen in works such as Fruit on a Tablecloth, 1864-65 (Musée d'Orsay, Paris), and Frans Hal’s careful configuration of light and dark, handling of reflective surfaces, and the decadent after-dinner theme, and combines them with the rapid, painterly techniques acquired while painting French coastal scenes. Even protected from the elements in the studio Peploe painted quickly, with the artist’s brother-in-law Frederick Porter noting that ‘the whole canvas has to be finished in one painting session so as to preserve complete continuity' (F.P. Porter, 'The Art of S.J. Peploe', New Alliance VI, no. 6, 1945, p. 7). This would have been especially important given the fleeting lighting conditions captured in the present work. Peploe’s other innovation is the heightened sense of narrative the artist brings to the highly academic discipline of still life painting. The off-axis positioning of the table deepens the perspective and brings the viewer into the scene, while the naturalistic treatment of a low late afternoon sun flooding the composition evokes a reflective, satisfied mood and suggests the continuation of life and activity beyond the carefully composed scene.
Peploe was fascinated by the intellectual possibilities of still life painting and was extremely fastidious in his approach. As Porter notes, layouts were meticulously planned to achieve the correct harmony between objects in space, and brushstrokes which did not meet Peploe’s painterly ideal were immediately ‘obliterated by the palette knife’ (F.P. Porter, ibid.). The artist later turned from the fluid style of the early 1900s, as his work became increasingly vibrant and compositionally tighter, as he painted in Paris alongside his European contemporaries and a natural cross-polination of ideas transpired. However, it is perhaps the sensual looseness of style underpinned by extreme attention to detail that distinguishes this work and explains why still lifes from this early phase remain highly sought-after.
1905 marks a creative milestone in Peploe’s early career and his lifelong exploration of the possibilities of still life painting. The present work, along with similarly configured compositions such as The Coffee Pot, circa 1905, (which achieved a then record price for the artist when it was sold in these Rooms in 2011 for £937,250), are the culmination of a number of influences on Peploe’s practice. The artist’s horizons were broadened significantly by his studies in Paris from 1894, and his exposure to the work of Impressionists and Old Masters ranging from Edouard Manet to the Dutch Golden age painter Franz Hals. Reproductions of works by these artists hung in his studio and became an important point of reference for Peploe’s own work. Equally formative were a series of painting trips to northern France made with Peploe’s friend and fellow Scottish Colourist John Duncan Fergusson, where Peploe developed the speed, fluidity and ability to distil scenes to their essence required for painting en plein air.
The present work represents a synthesis of these influences. Peploe acknowledges Manet’s fluid brushtrokes and restricted palette seen in works such as Fruit on a Tablecloth, 1864-65 (Musée d'Orsay, Paris), and Frans Hal’s careful configuration of light and dark, handling of reflective surfaces, and the decadent after-dinner theme, and combines them with the rapid, painterly techniques acquired while painting French coastal scenes. Even protected from the elements in the studio Peploe painted quickly, with the artist’s brother-in-law Frederick Porter noting that ‘the whole canvas has to be finished in one painting session so as to preserve complete continuity' (F.P. Porter, 'The Art of S.J. Peploe', New Alliance VI, no. 6, 1945, p. 7). This would have been especially important given the fleeting lighting conditions captured in the present work. Peploe’s other innovation is the heightened sense of narrative the artist brings to the highly academic discipline of still life painting. The off-axis positioning of the table deepens the perspective and brings the viewer into the scene, while the naturalistic treatment of a low late afternoon sun flooding the composition evokes a reflective, satisfied mood and suggests the continuation of life and activity beyond the carefully composed scene.
Peploe was fascinated by the intellectual possibilities of still life painting and was extremely fastidious in his approach. As Porter notes, layouts were meticulously planned to achieve the correct harmony between objects in space, and brushstrokes which did not meet Peploe’s painterly ideal were immediately ‘obliterated by the palette knife’ (F.P. Porter, ibid.). The artist later turned from the fluid style of the early 1900s, as his work became increasingly vibrant and compositionally tighter, as he painted in Paris alongside his European contemporaries and a natural cross-polination of ideas transpired. However, it is perhaps the sensual looseness of style underpinned by extreme attention to detail that distinguishes this work and explains why still lifes from this early phase remain highly sought-after.