Flower market, Nice 1925

Curator: Let’s turn our attention to Ethel Carrick's “Flower Market, Nice,” painted in 1925. Editor: Oh, what a splash of summer! It just explodes with light and blossoms, like confetti tossed into the air. I can almost smell the sweet perfume. Curator: Carrick, working en plein air, truly captures the sensory experience. We can observe her distinct brushstrokes building form, indicative of her training and connection to Impressionist techniques that she refined during her extensive travels throughout Europe. It begs us to ask, "Where were these flowers grown, who harvested them, and who profits at this exchange?". Editor: Absolutely. And I’m wondering if it felt this romantic to those actually hauling and hawking flowers day in, day out! The blurred figures—they’re less individual people and more cogs within a system. Except maybe that one figure on the left. It does beg the question of whose labor it is all based on, now that you mention it. Curator: It is very probable that Carrick chose this subject due to its social dynamics, it becomes very evident with some historical insight into the place. She lived in a globalized world that afforded her to have freedom of choice in travel. Not afforded to most. Editor: I like the contrast too – the cool green shade of the trees providing relief, almost indifference, to the bustling scene below. And the little splashes of architecture peeking through add an intimate feel to the broader panorama. A certain sense of community can be inferred when observed in tandem with the architectural surrounding. Curator: Agreed, the construction and deconstruction are really fighting for the eye’s attention here. As with most genre painting, one wonders about the position of the subject versus the place where it lives, particularly from a market as a material space. Editor: Definitely. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? What’s really blooming: flowers or human exchange? Curator: It’s about both; the marketplace is a very important material system for many lives. Editor: Well, now I see even more layers beneath those Impressionistic dabs. Thank you.