Barns-Graham’s interest in geological formations is apparent throughout her career. This depiction of the rocks at St Mary’s isle is distinctively influenced by an encounter she had with the Grindewald glaciers in Switzerland in 1949. These monumental blocks of ice appeared to be simultaneously solid and transparent and this phenomenon inspired her to represent both the inside and outside elements of the solid objects she painted, in what she called a 'total view'. Barns-Graham was sensitive to the fact that the glaciers were constantly in flux due to changing temperatures, and translates this sense of indefiniteness to her later drawings of rock formations. She does so here by combining light washes of watercolour with printed rhythmic lines.