Confins

René Marcel Carcan

After living and working as an artist in Italy on a UNESCO fellowship in the late 1950s, where he was exposed to the ancient Etruscan funerary art and architectural ruins found in museums and burial sites found throughout the country. Following his time in Italy, Carcan traveled to Paris to study color engraving at the workshop of Johnny Friedlaender. Many of his abstract works from this time seem to reflect his interest in these relics of Etruria: dark, textured interiors of stone, laced here and there with bright color echoing the joyous chromatic reliefs found in remaining Etruscan tombs.

Here, Carcan's "Confins" suggests a dark interior, or "confine," made of stone - but somehow his interpretation is not stifling but is rather mystreious, dotted with shards of red and what might be a shaft of light on the right-hand wall. A suggestion of a door rests at the center of the work, encouraging the viewer to consider what lies beyond.