CHENNAI : Do you remember those childhood afternoons spent meticulously following numbered instructions to colour? Oh, the joy of seeing the picture come alive, number by number, hue by hue! If you thought that these delights are invariably trampled by age, it may surprise you to know that decades ago, painting by numbers took the adult world by storm! This was a time when World War-weary countries were looking up, with time to spare and nerves to calm.
And this is how it all began. In the 1950’s, Max Klein, the owner of a company that sold paints for commercial sign boards, was thinking up ways to increase revenue. Dan Robbins, an employee since 1949, presented the innovative idea of Painting Kits that would have numbers to indicate the colours and areas to paint. Inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci (of the Mona Lisa fame), who used to entrust his apprentices with painting numbered portions of his canvases, Robbins, at first, made an abstract design using the same method. Klein loved the concept but not the design. After several experiments, the Paint-by-Numbers kit was created, using famous artworks like ‘The Last Supper’ and others.
As the next step, Klein and Robbins demonstrated the invention at a supermarket and as luck would have it, it was an instant hit, selling out immediately. The concept soon became a rage, with several artwork designs being introduced regularly. The company quickly grew, producing an astounding 50,000 kits each day. Households proudly flaunted their freshly painted versions on their fading living room walls. It even found its way into The White House!
As is the case with all things new and widely popular, this too had its fair share of criticism. Some found it silly, some felt that it made the act of creating a painting seem very simple and all by rote, while many others felt that it would result in undermining the value of “real” artworks and strip them of their originality. No matter the negative reactions, Dan Robbins was a happy man, and wrote in his memoir, “I never claim that painting by number is art. It is the experience of art, and it brings that experience to the individual who would normally not pick up a brush, not dip it in paint. That’s what it does.” And how true!
The fad may have died after the 60’s, perhaps due to the invasion of television sets in every home and other such pastimes, but that cannot take us away from the fact that the effect on society during its heyday was far-reaching!
Artists like Andy Warhol in the 80’s and Damien Hirst in the early 2000’s did dabble in this technique at times, but by and large, it is now largely confined to children’s colouring books, while adults busy themselves with conquering corporate universes.
It is amazing how a simple marketing idea combined with good creative thinking, could birth a Rembrandt in millions of households by letting them discover art. Maybe someday, another such ingenuity would make us pause in this rat race and do something that breathes beauty everytime we encounter it.