If Hélène Smith wasn’t a real psychic, she was a remarkably ambitious fake — she claimed to be able to visit Mars:

“How funny, these cars! Hardly any horses or people that are on the move. Imagine different kinds of armchairs that slide but don’t have wheels. It is the tiny wheels that produce the sparks. People sit in their armchairs. Some of them, the larger ones, hold four to five people. To the right of the armchairs a kind of handle stick is at tached, fitted with a button that one presses with the thumb to put the vehicle in motion. There are no rails. One also sees the people walking. They are built like us and hold onto each other with the little finger. The clothing is the same for both sexes: a long blouse tight around the waist, very large trousers, shoes with very thick soles, no heel and of the same colour as the rest of the outfit which is in shammy, white with black designs.”

Between 1894 and 1901 she gave 60 séances, detailing the Martian language and eventually inspiring a book, From India to the Planet Mars, by University of Geneva psychologist Theodor Flournoy.

Matisse wrote, “There are always flowers for those who want to see them.”