The artist begins with a vision - a creative operation requiring an effort. — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
I dream of an art of balance, of quietness, something analogous to a good armchair. — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
What interests me most is neither still life nor landscape, but the human figure. — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
Seek the strongest color effect possible... the content is of no importance. — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
Cutting straight into color reminds me of the direct carving of the sculptor. — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
When I put a green, it is not grass. When I put a blue, it is not the sky. — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
What interests me most is neither still life nor landscape: it is the human figure. — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
An artist must possess Nature. He must identify himself with her rhythm, by efforts that will prepare the mastery which will later… — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
Much of the beauty that arises in art comes from the struggle an artist wages with his limited medium. — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
The artist has to look at life as he did when he was a child. If he loses that faculty, he cannot… — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
An artist must never be a prisoner. Prisoner? An artist should never be a prisoner of himself, prisoner of style, prisoner of… — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
Color helps to express light, not the physical phenomenon, but the only light that really exists, that in the artist's brain. — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
The artists must see all things as if he were seeing them for the first time. All his life he must see… — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
Truth and reality in art do not arise until you no longer understand what you are doing and are capable of but… — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
It is not enough to place colors, however beautiful, one beside the other; colors must also react on one another. Otherwise, you… — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
I may be weird, but creative wise I have the knowledge to know and believe in my heart that my weirdness makes… — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
Composition is the art of arranging in a decorative manner the various elements which the painter uses to express his sentiments. In… — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
Each work of art is a collection of signs invented during the picture's execution to suit the needs of their position. Taken… — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
When a painting is finished, it's like a new born child, and the artist himself must have time for understanding. How then… — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
In art, truth and reality begin when one no longer understands what one is doing or what one knows, and when there… — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
It would be a mistake to ascribe this creative power to an inborn talent. In art, the genius creator is not just… — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
A distinction is made between artists who work directly from nature and those who work purely from imagination. Neither if these methods… — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
The role of the artist, like that of the scholar, consists of seizing current truths often repeated to him, but which will… — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
Above all, an artist must never be too easily satisfied with what he has done... — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
I want to reach that condensation of sensations that constitutes a picture. — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
With color one obtains an energy that seems to stem from witchcraft. — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
When an artist or student draws a nude figure with painstaking care, the result is drawing, and not emotion. — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
A work of art must carry in itself its complete significance and impose it upon the beholder even before he can identify… — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
The importance of an artist is to be measured by the quantity of new signs which he has introduced to the language… — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
Did not the artists of the great age of Japanese art change names many times during their careers? I like that; they… — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
What's so astonishing about not understanding? There are so many things in art, beginning with art itself, that one doesn't understand. A… — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
When I saw what a mess everything was in I asked for my money back on the ticket. I would have felt I was… — Henri Matisse Copy Share
A painting in an interior spreads joy around it by the colors, which calm us. — Henri Matisse Copy Share
Color was not given to us in order that we should imitate Nature. It was given to us so that we can express our… — Henri Matisse Copy Share
If it is practiced by a man of taste, the photograph will have the appearance of art (but) the photographer must...intervene as little as… — Henri Matisse Copy Share
I have always tried to hide my efforts and wished my works to have a light joyousness of springtime which never lets anyone suspect… — Henri Matisse Copy Share
The chief function of color should be to serve expression as well as possible. — Henri Matisse Copy Share
My pictures are made up of four or five colors that collide with one another… — Henri Matisse Copy Share
...I am driven on by an idea that I really only grasp as it grows with the picture. — Henri Matisse Copy Share
