 Meldrum blamed social decadence for artists' exaggerated interest in colour over tone and proportion.Beckett's painting however represents a departure from Meldrum's strict principles which dictated that tone should take precedence over colour, as commented upon in a newspaper critique of her 1931 solo exhibition.A reviewer of her 1932 Atheneum show expressed her particular version of this as "an adaptation of art to nature, which belongs neither to the realm of the orthodox normalist or the avowed modern, but is a purely individual expression of certain sensations in light, form and color..." Rosalind Hollinrake, who was largely responsible for Beckett's revival, notes a use colour to reinforce form, and more daring design, in the later years of the artist's short life.