From his Robinson's time in Paris he developed an admiration for the work of modernist painters such as Henri Matisse, André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck, and Pablo Picasso but he was equally fascinated by the Aztec and Inca objects he saw in South and Central America. From these varied sources, Robinson developed his distinctive mode of painting based on flat planes of color, thick dark outlines, and monumental forms...Sail... is typical of the many landscapes Robinson painted late in his career when his approach had become increasingly stylized and his range of subject matter narrowed. The whitewashed, gable-ended cottages, looming dark mountains, and shawled peasant women awaiting fishing boats or walking along a road appear in dozens of his works, together producing a personal iconography of the rural west of Ireland. Robinson painted from memory, and his moody, reduced palette, his repetition of subjects, and his abstraction of form suggest a landscape distilled to its essential qualities.

from Snay, The Donald and Marilyn Keough Collection of Irish Art (Notre Dame, 2019)