Scottish Landscape 

Editor: This is “Scottish Landscape” by Samuel Peploe, created with oil paints in an impasto style. What immediately strikes me is the dynamic texture; the sky feels incredibly heavy, almost pressing down on the land. What do you see in this piece? Curator: It is intriguing how Peploe constructs a landscape primarily through texture and chromatic intensity rather than linear definition. Notice how the brushstrokes themselves become the subject. Editor: So, you are saying the visible brushwork is more important than the literal depiction of the landscape itself? Curator: Precisely. Observe the lack of blending. Each stroke remains independent, creating a mosaic-like surface. What effect does that have on your reading of the landscape? Does it enhance or diminish the sense of depth? Editor: It makes it feel very flat, almost like a tapestry. The sky, although suggested as being above the land, exists on the same plane, especially with the limited colour palette. It seems to undermine traditional landscape painting conventions, which prioritized the illusion of depth. Curator: Exactly. The colour palette is not traditionally descriptive; rather, it serves a formal purpose. Peploe seems intent on flattening pictorial space to emphasize the materiality of the paint. Are you familiar with Clement Greenberg's writings on flatness? Editor: Vaguely. He championed the Abstract Expressionists, didn't he, for their commitment to the picture plane? Curator: Indeed. And though Peploe is working within a landscape tradition, he's engaging in a similar project: emphasizing the inherent properties of the medium. This shift forces us to contemplate painting not as a window onto the world but as an object in its own right. I found new understanding of materiality here. Editor: I hadn't thought about it that way; the brushstrokes do make it less about 'landscape' and more about 'painting.' Thanks.