A Rocky Shore, Iona 

Samuel Peploe's "A Rocky Shore, Iona" is a landscape that arrests us with its dynamic tension between solidity and fluidity. The rocks in the foreground are rendered in robust, angular strokes of blues, whites, and browns, creating a tactile sense of weight and permanence. This contrasts sharply with the energetic sea, where the artist uses quick, broken brushstrokes to capture the movement of water and light. This opposition isn't just descriptive; it seems to destabilize our assumptions about the natural world. Peploe's modernist approach is evident in how the landscape is reduced to its essential forms and colors, pushing beyond mere representation to explore the visual language of painting itself. The formal qualities of the work – the interplay of mass and void, the contrast of textures – invite us to question the stability of appearances and the nature of our perception. In this way, Peploe prompts us to engage with a vision that remains vibrantly unsettled.