I was so engrossed that at one point I looked up at the clock and saw that hours had passed! Finally, I felt that I had the picture just as I wanted it, and as chance would have it, at exactly the same moment Augustin was telling us that our time was up and commanding that we put down our paintbrushes and pencils. I watched him walk around the room gathering up the work, peeling the top page from our sketch books so that soon he had all of our drawings, including mine. He took the stack back to the front of the classroom and, using sticky tape, he quickly stuck them up on the classroom wall so that we could all see them lined up in two rows.

It was a shock. All this time, I had been so focused on my own work, I hadn’t cast a glance at the other easels. Now, displayed like this, I could see that the other sixteen pictures on the wall were nothing like mine. They weren’t even pictures – well, not like I thought of a picture. I’ve never wanted to make modern art, and to me these pictures were all kind of weird. Some of them were no more than splodges, smears and blobs. Others were just bold words scrawled in French. One picture was nothing more than three spindly lines with a splodge on top and it was this one that Augustin actually singled out first to discuss with the class.

“Now here is a composition that speaks to me!” he enthused. “When I look at this work I think ‘Yes! This is what is modern now!’ This is art that confronts the viewer, and asks them to question: what is life? What does it all mean?”

I was boggling at this. As far as I could see all we were staring at here was a couple of wiggly lines and a blob. Was that a commentary on life? Apparently so, because Augustin didn’t stop! He raved on about it for ages in a way that seemed positively bonkers and then … embarrassingly, he went straight over to my work next.

I already had this sick feeling in my gut before he spoke a word. I mean, if he thought the dumb squiggles were “modern” and “confronting” then how could he possibly like my picture too? There was a part of me though that held out hope all the same, that maybe he would find himself bowled over by my skill. After all, hadn’t I won a scholarship that got me into this place? They had brought me here from England for this. That had to mean I was talented, right? And then Augustin opened his mouth and all my hope was gone.