Henriette & Matisse

As we all know, Matisse is a great painter. Miss Henriette is his model. When she poses and dances for him, two brushes always fight about the lines or colours … 

Henriette is the heroine of the story. In fact, there was a real Henriette Darricarrère in the life of the painter, during the 1920s…

Between inspiration and muse, expertise and invention, reality and representation, reproduction and stylisation, the four characters, i.e. the painter, the model, the line brush and the colour brush, dance and draw body curves. On stage and in movement, a playful story of the act of creation is being developed with children in mind, for they are better readers of art than we think. In their innocent and voracious gathering of data, each discovery is potentially and equally important: there is no oddness, there are only possibilities !

Henri Matisse’s work, which is marked by many “dances”, is the perfect tool to create dialogue with children. His life quest, searching for the essence of Painting, brought him to simplification and, while literal representation faded with the passing years, the artist never gave up using body curves as a source of inspiration. When he diverged from the traditional form of painting, it was to invent the famous flat tint cut outs. This technique marked the last and very important period of his work, testifying to the conflict between line and colour, which was a characteristic of Matisse’s research.

Get ready to move! Grab your brushes and your scissors! From dance to water colours and cut-outs, we shall see you in theatres and museums! Wishing you colourful dreams…