Schoolgirls 1954

Charles Blackman made this painting, Schoolgirls, with oils on canvas. At first glance, the palette seems all sombre browns and blues, but then you notice how the skin tones are subtly inflected with rose and even green. You can imagine the artist mixing these colours, adding a touch of this or that, to make the flesh tones sing against the darker ground. The painting feels like it came into being through intuition, a process of layering and adjusting. I wonder what Blackman was thinking about when he made this? What was he trying to capture about the schoolgirls, their internal world, their experience of urban life, their loneliness? Look at the hands of the schoolgirl on the left, the way she clasps them. That gesture communicates so much feeling. You get a sense of what it was like to be a schoolgirl, the pressure and the vulnerability of youth. What do you think?