Painting: Market with So Much Less than Meets the Eye?

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This oil painting on canvas by Frederic Marsanne, titled "Market with So Much Less than Meets the Eye?" challenges perceptions and explorations.

Artist Statement

This is one of the first market scenes I ever painted - back in 1993. When I was studying accounting at Yale. Instead of cramming for my final exam, I was doing this. Oh my...

This artwork is one of my wife's favorites. Based on a picture/photograph I have since misplaced and reinterpreted somehow, it is beautiful but I find it frustrating. I enjoyed painting it at the time, but I outgrew its aesthetics long ago. 

Arguably, the colors are alluring and the scene rather appealing. But it's essentially a reproduction, and I value most the pursuit of the authentic and the original and - the ultimate prize - the discovery of new patterns. 

New ideas, surprising associations, and astonishing takes, are what I seek to incubate in my paintings. The way I see it: 

I do not care nearly as much about the beautiful as I do about the impactful. Beauty is not enough of a trigger. Only the emotion the representation ignites matters. That's when the art comes alive, and the artist ceases to die. 

Looking at the painting, I often think of French post-impressionist Georges Seurat and his pointillism as a possible source of inspiration. I'll travel to Chicago just to admire "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884" at the Art Institute. 

Likewise, Chuck Close's grid painting, which has had a profound influence on me, may have served as a muse, although I cannot recollect any such influence back when I was painting "Market with So Much Less than Meets the Eye?," nor does my painting remotely resemble any one ever pained by either genius. 

 

 

 

 

 

Medium

Oil on Canvas - 30''x40''

Signaletics

Market with So Much Less than Meets the Eye? is a 1993 painting by Frederic Marsanne, the leading artist in the house where he lives... Frederic has exhibited at MKL GALLERY in Somerville, MA, Ambassador Galleries in Soho, NY, and was chosen to exhibit in a juried show at the New Rochelle Art Association Annual in New Rochelle, NY.

Style, Themes, Techniques

I love life, and markets are full of it - colors, flavors, and tremors. Products, people, places. The scents, vents, and tents. The painting tries to capture the magic of the scene. How much of a dent will the spent make?

I often think of artist Chuck Close's body of work as a source of inspiration. The master suffered from face blindness (prosopagnosia) and had difficulty recognizing new faces. By pursuing portraiture, he was better able to recognize, fixate, and recollect faces. On the subject, Close said, "I was not conscious of making a decision to paint portraits because I have difficulty recognizing faces. That occurred to me twenty years after the fact when I looked at why I was still painting portraits, why that still had urgency for me. I began to realize that it has sustained me for so long because I have difficulty in recognizing faces."

In "Market with So Much Less than Meets the Eye?", no face can be recognized. I admire Close's grid painting's extraordinary output (unconditionally), yet ponder about the magic of mapping the soul.

And then there was Rembrandt...

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