Feed the Flame

Commenting on the still lifes of 1956-58, Alan Bowness (William Scott: Paintings, London, 1964, p. 10) remarks: 'The general development is from balanced and static compositions towards agitated profusion of forms and an extreme disequilibrium. Sometimes there are great empty spaces, with the objects clinging to the edge of the pictures and falling over the sides; sometimes they are crowded pell-mell on to the tables. Often, as in Cézanne, a vertical accent divides the picture into two equal halves: it is established by a knife, or by the side of a pan, or by an alignment. Scott's sense of proportion and interval is highly developed, and the tensions between forms are always taut. Paint surfaces are rich and varied and voluptuous, and a kind of animal vigour seems to cling to the pictures. Tonal contrasts are emphasised: colouring tends to be monochromatic, with a preference for orange-red, blue, and ochre-brown. At times Scott uses more or less the same composition for a different coloured picture. It is as if he wants to find out what happens when he does the picture in brown, not blue, or when the background tone is changed from light to dark'.