Boats at Royan 1910

Samuel Peploe made this painting, Boats at Royan, with oil on canvas, and what grabs me is the sheer joy in the application of paint. The way the colors vibrate against each other speaks to me of experimentation. Looking closely, you can almost feel the thick, buttery texture of the paint itself. It's as if Peploe is less interested in depicting boats, buildings and water and more interested in capturing the essence of light and color. See how he's used these confident strokes to create the impression of form, dissolving the whole scene into a mosaic of color. The boats don’t look like boats. It’s easy to imagine this piece sitting alongside a Matisse of the same period, equally obsessed with light, colour and the sensuous application of paint. The canvas becomes a field for exploration, where representation is only a starting point for something much more ambiguous.