Still Life, Pears and Grapes 1930

Samuel Peploe made this painting of pears and grapes with oil paint, and you can really see the process at work. The brushstrokes are chunky and confident, each dab of color building up the forms in a way that feels both deliberate and spontaneous. Look at that pear sitting slightly apart from the rest – see how it's not just yellow, but a mix of oranges and greens, laid down in these textured strokes. The surface is alive with a kind of vibrating energy. It's like he's not just painting a pear, but the idea of a pear, or the feeling of a pear. You can feel Cézanne's influence here, but Peploe’s mark-making has an energy of its own. Both artists saw painting as a process of building up color and form through careful observation, embracing ambiguity over certainty.