By the time Scott embarked on the present work he had visited Canada and the U.S.A., seeing the work of the much talked about Abstract Expressionists and Action Painters, including Pollock, Kline, and Rothko. Scott was impressed with the work he saw, however, this exposure did not encourage him to completely embrace abstract work and he continued to associate his work closer to European sources including Chardin, Corot, Cézanne, Braque and Bonnard.

Although in Composition it appears as if Scott has abandoned any figurative references and that he has moved into complete abstraction, the lozenge shapes retain a visual stamp of the still life subject matter that continually fed into Scott’s work. Instead of the viewer’s concentration being focused on reading the shapes as cups or bowls on a tabletop Scott has created tension in the arrangement of the forms, which cling to either side of the painting.

Scott’s gestural paintwork is also very apparent in this pared-down tonal work. The viewer’s eye is led across the surface by Scott’s brushstrokes, which reveal the process of creation. Scott commented, ‘The actual touch and the way I put paint on the canvas matter very much. I am extremely interested in textual qualities - the thick paint, the thin paint, the scratched lines, the almost careful-careless way in which a picture’s painted ... I don’t like a picture painted with a too slick, too efficient technique - painting with too much know-how’ (quoted in A. Bowness (ed.), William Scott: Paintings, London, 1964, p. 11).