Samuel John Peploe, R.S.A. 1871-1935

Still Life with Carnations was painted c.1904 and is contemporaneous with Flowers in a Silver Jug (The Fleming-Wyfold Art Foundation) and Souvenir (Aberdeen Art Gallery) which includes the same white and green fan case. During this period Peploe and Fergusson became close friends and shared a mutual respect for Manet. They are believed to have painted together for the first time in 1904 and in the early years of their careers there was a close similarity in their work and they were clearly influenced by the same painters. On his return to Scotland, Peploe translated his new found enthusiasm into a series of still life paintings; the present picture forms part of that group. Frederick Porter, the artist's brother-in-law gives us some insight into how the artist approached his painting; 'All his still lifes were carefully arranged and considered before he put them onto the canvas. When this was done - it often took several days to accomplish - he seemed to have absorbed everything necessary for transmitting them to canvas. The result was the canvas covered without any apparent effort. If a certain touch was wrong it was soon obliterated by the palette knife. The whole canvas had to be finished in one painting so as to preserve complete continuity. If, in his judgment it was not right then the whole painting was scraped out and painted again.' (Frederick Porter, The Art of S. J. Peploe, 1945, p.7)

After his initial training in Edinburgh, Peploe left Paris in the summer of 1894, where he studied at the Academies Julian and Colarossi. This instilled in him a fascination for the still life tradition, particularly that of Jean-Baptiste Simeon Chardin, Frans Hals and Rembrandt. He visited Holland in 1895 and returned to Edinburgh with reproductions and photographs of works by the Old Masters. Cursiter reveals '... there was always a reproduction or photograph of some picture by Rembrandt, Hals, or Manet pinned to his studio'. Hals had been called the 'Painter's painter' and from his earliest work Peploe had a painter's sense for paint. To him it was never the means of representation but always a material beautiful in itself, rich and luscious, with a full body to be applied in a direct confident manner.' (Stanley Cursiter, Peploe - An Intimate Memoir of an Artist and of his Work, 1947, p. 8) At the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh Peploe would have seen Hals' portraits of a Dutch lady and gentleman. Peploe's loose brushwork seen in Still Life with Carnations relates strongly to Hals' free use of paint and strong tones. However it was Edouard Manet who was the major influence upon Peploe's early work both in painterly technique and approach to subject matter. Peploe recognised in Manet a manipulation of tonal values and the continuing tradition of still life painting. 

Stanley Cursiter described Peploe's technique thus; 'His technique broadened and he adopted a medium which gave a richer surface and which appeared to hold the brush marks with a still fuller body of paint. It has been suggested that he used some form of enamel, as the pigment takes on the smooth creamy quality and the flowing texture that enamel would produce, but the actual paint is more solid, and it would not seem possible to build up the full impasto which he secured with any of the commercial types. It is more probable that his medium contained a large proportion of stand oil with some addition of varnish. Whatever it was, it had a very pleasing quality, slightly translucent, preserving the colour at high pitch while avoiding a too pronounced glitter or shine. Some of the still life paintings of this period are particularly fine... wine bottles, glasses, fruit and coffee cups are the main ingredients with occasionally a piece of silver or a flower in a glass.' (ibid Cursiter, p.18)