Henri Matisse, *Sketch for Le Bonheur de vivre* (The Joy of Life), 1905-6

What a wonderful class we had this week. We introduced the work of Henri Matisse and built a class around using colour for expression and not just description. Then I gave everyone a pre-selected colour palette of 5 colours which I had printed from this website. Aniruddhe suggested we turn this into a lucky draw — that definitely added a ton of excitement to the class.

After Matisse visited Morocco he began drawing a lot of goldfish. The story goes that people there used to sit around for hours staring at goldfish and he was fascinated by that. And so he started painting them.

I asked everyone to mix the colours they had been given on their palettes. They had never ever done this before — but they couldn’t wait to try. All I told them was the basic rules of mixing

red+blue=purple

red+yellow=orange

blue+yellow=orange

To go darker add black, to go lighter add white

To go warmer go yellow, to go cooler add blue

Most did it intuitively, without needing too much help. One or two people didn’t get it right in the beginning. I told them — think of it as though you’re making daal. You don’t get it perfect the first time! By the end, everyone had mixed their colours and with impressive accuracy.

Some people who struggled asked other women in the class for help. They worked together to get the colour recipes just right and once they had them, they knew exactly how to make them again.

Their next task was to let the colours inspire the composition. Some started by just dabbing random marks on the page and seeing what came out of it. Others had a very clear image in their mind associated with those colours. It really felt like we broke a barrier in this class.

One of the students said in the beginning she didn’t know what to make. She made a random mark with her brush and it looked to her like a person. So she drew a sea of people in the same way. Then she wanted to give the whole thing some message, so she painted Savitribai Phule to show how much impact she had had on so many people. She felt, she said, like she was joining forces with the universe - that she had made the picture in a collaboration with randomness.

There was one new student today. It was her first day in prison. She was in a state of shock, completely frozen. Sitting with everyone, she began mixing colours, and the women told her loud and clear in front of me. “Cheer up, when we come here we park our sadness somewhere. We come, we spend a few hours having fun.”

This was music to my ears. Joy is so important. Frivolity is so, so important for survival. Escapism is also a part of it, and we need that too. I hope she comes back next week.

Matisse

Figure Drawing

Value