Winter Light, Arran

The Isle of Arran sits low on the horizon here, its snow-covered peaks catching the last pink light of a winter afternoon. Anyone who has stood on the Ayrshire coast in January will recognise the view: the island floating across the Firth of Clyde, close enough to see the ridges of Goat Fell, far enough that the details blur into slabs of white and pale blue. Peter King builds the whole scene with a palette knife rather than a brush, which is why the paint sits up off the surface in thick ridges and flat scraped planes. Tilt your head and the real light in the room catches those edges, so the snow genuinely glints.

The colour choices are worth a second look. That band of pink across the sky is the low winter sun, but King pushes it further than a photograph would, letting it bleed down over the mountains so the snow reads as warm rather than cold. Below, the near shore gets sudden dashes of yellow and green among the blues, tiny marks of dried grass and fields that keep the middle distance from going flat. The sea takes up almost half the canvas, laid in with broad horizontal strokes and very little fuss.

King paints the west coast of Scotland regularly, and this is very much a working painter's landscape rather than a grand statement: a familiar view, seen often, put down quickly while the light held. The knife work suits that. It leaves no room for fiddling.