Working with the Light

" Derive happiness in oneself from a good day's work, from illuminating the fog that surrounds us.."

"A picture must possess a real power to generate light and for a long time now I've been conscious of expressing myself through light or rather in light."

- Henri Matisse (1869 - 1954)

The Snail (1953) - Tate Modern June 2010

What I probably miss the most about teaching, is the creative lessons - art or design-technology especially. All lessons could be brought to the children with creativity, imagination, and care of course. I used to take hours over some lesson plans, trying to come up with a fool proof recipe for capturing the children's interest for even the most tedious of topics.

However in art and design, I really loved getting down, all hands on, and making with the children. Learning through doing (me too!). Getting messy with clay, or glue, or paint. Seeing the children's creations take shape - the expression of themselves, their world view, their ideas! All unique expressions of their own special combination of something mysterious and magical, and their experiences of the world so far. No-one can see the world in quite the same way as the next person, can they?

"I would like to recapture that freshness of vision which is characteristic of extreme youth when all the world is new to it."

- Henri Matisse

I was reminded yesterday of this enjoyment, both of creating with children, and of learning about great artists themselves. One of the women from the Unravelling course I took last year has created this fabulous new place called "The Art Garden" where she presents art workshops for parents and children on video. I watched one or two of her first lessons, and guess who she was introducing? Yes Henri Matisse. She showed how to use a really simple technique, one that is brilliant for children as they get to create their own shapes and learn about colour. They also learn about Matisse at the same time!

This post about Henri Matisse has been at the back of my mind for a long time. Forgive me if I have in fact previously posted about this - I either planned it, or dreamed I posted it, or I did it and just can't find it anywhere! So when I visited Carol's site yesterday I knew it was a message to listen and to share her work, and Matisse!

"There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted."

- Henri Matisse

I was particularly taken some time ago, with the idea of Matisse designing the breathtakingly beautiful Rosaire Chapel in the town of Vence in the South East of France. When I saw this BBC documentary about Matisse and learned how he had designed the whole of this Chapel in the last years of his life, I fell in love with the place and with his work.

Another aspect of the story of this Chapel that really moved me was that Matisse designed it as a thank you gift to a young nurse, Monique Bourgeois, who cared for him following his operation for bowel cancer. Monique also liked art and drawing, and she modelled for him, later entering a Dominican convent. Following her Ordination as Sister Jacques-Marie, she confided in Matisse that she wished to decorate the oratory fitted out by the nuns in one of the rooms in their convent. Matisse worked for four years with the community and architects to create this amazing space.

This clip from the BBC documentary really shows the beauty of the Chapel. The presenter himself is so moved by the fact that Matisse had by this late stage of his life, come to work just with only the light itself as his material. Almost symbolic of his search for inner peace through his work.

Matisse was first given a box of paints by his mother, who had bought them to cheer him up following a mysterious illness at the age of nineteen. Some biographers think the illness was depression and Matisse is quoted as saying that when he held this "box of colours" in his hands he knew it was his life...."like an animal that plunges headlong towards what it loves, I dived right in...it was a sort of  paradise found."


I would love to visit this place one day.