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

‘Like Cadell he [Peploe] found the island offered him a release from the tensions of life in Edinburgh; it also provided an opportunity to relax with his growing family while, at the same time, offering a totally different inspiration. Peploe treated Iona as systematically as he did his studio still-lifes. While Cadell found subjects wherever he looked on the island, Peploe was much more methodical and limited in his outlook. Most of his Iona paintings are of the island’s many bays, particularly at the north end, with the pale sands and intense blues and greens of the sea usually seen under skies flecked with cloud.’ (Roger Billcliffe, The Scottish Colourists – Cadell, Fergusson, Hunter, Peploe, 1989, p. 52)

In August 1920 Samuel John Peploe made his first visit to the tiny but beautiful island of Iona, off the west coast of Mull, invited by his friend Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell who had adored the rugged coastal scenery and remoteness of the island since before WWI. Peploe immediately became equally engaged by his surroundings and began to adopt Cadell's linear and abstract approach to landscape painting. The pictures he painted on Iona were immediately popular with collectors and 'did much to secure the artist's commercial success, at least paying the school fees. But the island was of far more significance for Peploe. It was a sanctuary. He felt in tune with this place.' (Guy Peploe, S. J. Peploe 1871-1935, 2000, p. 65) The spirituality engendered in Peploe whilst he was staying on Iona is evident in the Ode to the Elementals which Peploe composed to recite one midsummer night to a group of friends and members of his family; 'O Earth, our Mother, we, thy children, have come tonight to pay thee homage and to give thanks for all thy benefactions, to praise thee for thy manifold gifts.' (ibid Peploe, p. 65) The Ode continues to celebrate the wonders of nature and there is one line which seems particularly appropriate to the coastal views he painted at Iona; '...spirit of place, spirit of this particular place, lonely and barren, harsh and bitter is thy dwelling: encompassed by moor and rock and sea.' (ibid Peploe, p. 65)

The vividness of Peploe's palette is clearly evident in the colour harmonies he painted on Iona, in which the energy of the tone and contrast is given as much importance as the subject depicted. Although ostensibly representing humble views of rocks, sea and sand, Peploe's seascapes were as influential upon the move towards Modernism in which the Colourists were so pivotal, as the still-lifes and elegant interior studies.

It is likely that the present picture was painted in the mid 1920s and it may be one of the group of pictures painted in 1924 that were referred to by Guy Peploe as 'These pink-hued rocks, defined with decisive dark lines, have an architectural stature. Sometimes with a view through to Mull or the Treshnish Isles beyond.' (ibid Peploe, p.65)  Peploe wrote during his trip of 1920 that 'The most beautiful part of the island is the north end: white sands and beautiful rocks, looking across to Mull.' (ibid Peploe, p. 65)