Rules Are Not As Important As Emotions

Sometimes we don’t need to be a revolutionary activist to start a movement.
Being a revolutionary parent will do as well.

The Iridescence of Birds: A Book About Henri Matisse by Patricia MacLachlan and Hadley Hooper is less about the artist, and more about his mother. It makes for a good illustrated introduction to the beauty of growing up around colours.

This picture book portrays a fictional glimpse into Henri’s childhood, and takes from reality, to show his mother’s influence in his interest and self-expression through painting. Illustrated in watercolour style, but with a sharpness to lines as well as colours.

Henri Matisse’s mother loved to make the house brighter, by painting on plates that would go up on their otherwise grey walls.

The book sparingly plots the life of Matisse and his mother in their home.
Her love for paints and colour that she passed on to her son.

Who then went on to start one of 20th century’s prominent art movements, Fauvism, along with two other France-based artists — André Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck.

Among his love of colours was another love that he would go on to have for his lifetime — raising pigeons. Seldom have the ordinary, comical or pesky pigeons been portrayed in the light of being iridescent and graceful. But they were, to Henri. A boy brought up around colour and it’s intricacies.

Equally rare is the backstory of inspiration by a parent
being illustrated to such a simple tale.

To tell a detailed story on Henri Matisse beyond this book, some reading up was done. His mother, Anna Heloise Gerard, along with running a home with her husband, also helped run the house-paints section of his store. She had a good sense of colour, and would recommended colour combinations to customers buying paints for their homes. She would paint on porcelain as a hobby.

Contrary to the assumption we may make from the book, Henri did not study to become a painter. He was studying law until he suffered from appendicitis when 20 years old, and was homebound for recovery. We’re talking about the late 1800s.

His mother bought Henri Matisse some art supplies to keep him occupied. She also supplied him with an advice, that he took with him even as a future art student — “Don’t focus on following the rules. Focus on your emotions when painting.”

Fauvism was an avant-garde artform that blossomed from 1905–1908, and Matisse’s paintings with loose brushstrokes and bright colours that do not keep to their traditional roles (green for trees, blue for sky, pink for skin), would shock and scandalise art critics and the public.

But the movement, and Matisse who was inspired later by Van Gogh, went on to free artists from traditional rules of shape, form, and colour in self-expression on a canvas. Much like Shakespeare did for playwrights who wanted to create grey characters instead of heroes v/s villains as per norm.

The origin traces back to little Henri Matisse being encouraged to mix colours.
An adult Matisse being gifted a set of paints when recovering from ill health.

In being told that rules aren’t as important as emotions.

“Creativity takes courage”
– Henry Matisse