Folding Time
Although Stott was born in Rochdale, he spent much of his life at Amberley in Sussex, an idyllic village with thatched cottages. He painted many rural scenes from the countryside around his home, but many of his pictures have a melancholic air, perhaps reflecting his personal distress at the changing landscape. Folding Time depicts an elderly farmer returning home with the sheep at sunset, and as such may symbolize the end of an era with the gradual destruction of time honoured rural traditions. Stott was heavily influenced by the French artist Millet (1814-1875). Comparisons of his landscapes have also been made with the author Thomas Hardy's literary descriptions of the British countryside. His painting technique was long and painstaking with many preparatory notes and drawings used as inspiration for the final work. The oil paintings were built up in layers of small brush strokes, but he gradually moved towards a more impressionistic style with brighter colours and larger daubs of paint. Stott exhibited works at the Royal Academy for over thirty years and left them £25,000 in his will to provide art students with travel grants.
