Denis Peploe often sets his subject, ostensibly a still life, in a dreamscape, which might suggest landscape as a backdrop but denies conventional perspective and plays with ideas of scale. In this he is close in spirit to Marc Chagall and closer to his senior colleague at the Edinburgh College of Art, John Maxwell. In Birds and Flowers his gorgeous flowers in a vase are tilted to the left, floating, his song-birds are neither flying nor settled. An enigmatic building sits atop a plaza, or is it a tabletop? A blue moon is in partial eclipse. The lightness of these floating elements contrasts with the strongly handled oil paint, lending a rich, plastic reality to the painting.
About Denis Peploe
Denis Peploe RSA (1914–1993) was born in Edinburgh, the second son of the Scottish Colourist S. J. Peploe. Growing up within one of Scotland’s most distinguished artistic families, he accompanied his father on painting trips to Iona and the south of France, yet from an early stage developed an independent artistic identity and remained wary of direct comparison with his celebrated parent.
