 Working from Ditchling in Sussex, where he lived with his wife, in 1910 Gill began direct carving of stone figures.These included "Madonna and Child" (1910), which English painter and art critic Roger Fry described in 1911 as a depiction of "pathetic animalism", and "Ecstasy" (1911).Such semi-abstract sculptures showed Gill's appreciation of medieval ecclesiastical statuary, Egyptian, Greek and Indian sculpture, as well as the Post-Impressionism of Cézanne, van Gogh and Gauguin.