Pink Roses, Chinese Vase 1920

Samuel Peploe made this painting of pink roses in a Chinese vase with oil on canvas. Look at the paint – you can almost feel the way Peploe layers those strokes. It’s not about making things look real, but about the joy of applying paint, finding the right pink, the right red. There's a real conversation happening between the colours and forms. See how the red background pops against the pink roses? And how the vase has these blocky blue figures that kind of echo the shapes of the flowers themselves? It's all a big, happy family of shapes and colours. The impasto is like visual icing. Think about Matisse and those flat planes of colour, that same love of everyday beauty. Art's not about perfection; it's about the energy and the dialogue of making. It's this ongoing exchange of ideas, a kind of beautiful, messy conversation.