Still Life with Coffee Pot 1905

Samuel Peploe made this ‘Still Life with Coffee Pot’ using oil paint, and the way he's handled the medium, it's like he's having a conversation with the objects on that table. The paint is applied in these confident, juicy strokes. Thick in some places, thin in others, almost like he's sculpting with color. Look at the folds in the tablecloth – you can practically feel the weight of the fabric. The color palette is so reductive. He has these rich, dark blacks that seem to want to seep into the bright highlights of the reflective silver coffee pot. But it's not about perfection, it's about energy, about the process of seeing and translating what's in front of you into something new. There's something Cezanne-esque in that, don't you think? That same pursuit of form and structure beneath the surface of things. It shows how painting is an ongoing conversation across time, a continual act of reinterpreting what has come before.