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Artist Quotes by Henri Matisse

90 Artist quotes by Henri Matisse

All Artist quotes Henri Matisse’s page

A painting can spread joy through its colors, calming the viewer while the artist avoids becoming a prisoner of convention. The quotes say the artist paints differences rather than objects, aiming for balance, purity, and calmness that anyone can understand. They compare drawing to an expressive gesture that endures.

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Drawing is of the spirit; color is of the senses.

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An artist is an explorer.

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Impressionism is the newspaper of the soul.

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Drawing is putting a line around an idea.

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Never ruin a good painting with the truth.

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An artist must not feel under any constraint.

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All art worthy of the name is religious.

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Drawing is of the Spirit and color of the Senses.

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To draw is to make an idea precise. Drawing is the precision of thought.

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Aren't you [Tahiti Lagoons] one of the seven wonders of the Paradise of painters?

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The artist begins with a vision - a creative operation requiring effort. Creativity takes courage.

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Modern art spreads joy around by its color, which calms us.

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It has bothered me all my life that I do not paint like everybody else.

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Arrival = Prison, and the artist must never be a prisoner.

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Whoever wishes to devote himself to painting should begin by cutting out his own tongue

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I don't paint things. I only paint the difference between things.

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I was very embarrassed when my canvases began to fetch high prices. I saw myself condemned to a future of nothing but…

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I have to create an object which resembles the tree. The sign for a tree, and not the sign that other artists…

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The portrait is one of the most curious art forms. It demands special qualities in the artist, and an almost total kinship…

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I never retouch a sketch: I take a canvas the same size, as I may change the composition somewhat. But I always…

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It is only after years of preparation that the young artist should touch color - not color used descriptively, that is, but…

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An artist is an explorer. He has to begin by self-discovery and by observation of his own procedure. After that he must…

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If drawing belongs to the world of spirit and color to that of the senses, you must draw first to cultivate the…

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An artist must possess Nature. He must identify himself with her rhythm, by efforts that will prepare the mastery which will later…

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Photographs will always be impressive because they show us nature, and all artists will find in them a world of sensations. The…

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My choice of colors does not rest on any scientific theory; it is based on observation, on feeling, on the experience of…

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The arts have a development which comes not only from the individual but also from a whole acquired force, the civilization which…

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I do not repudiate any of my paintings but there isn't one of them that I would not redo differently, if I…

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Truth and reality in art begin at the point where the artist ceases to understand what he is doing and capable of…

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Expression for me does not reside in passions glowing in a human face or manifested by violent movement. The entire arrangement of…

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If people knew what Matisse, supposedly the painter of happiness, had gone through, the anguish and tragedy he had to overcome to…

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I don't paint women, I paint pictures. . . What I am after above all is expression. If in a portrait I…

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Slowly I discovered the secret of my art. It consists of a meditation on nature, on the expression of a dream which…

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Everything that we see in our daily lives is more or less distorted by acquired habits and this is perhaps more evident…

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There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he…

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I have always sought to be understood and, while I was taken to task by critics or colleagues, I thought they were…

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Cezanne, you see, is a sort of God of painting.

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The truly original artist invents his own signs.

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Art is an escape from reality.

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All my efforts go into creating an art that can be understood by everyone.

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More by Henri Matisse

The wall around the window does not create two worlds.

Arrival = Prison, and the artist must never be a prisoner.

To arrive is to be in prison.

When I saw what a mess everything was in I asked for my money back on the ticket. I would have felt I was…

A painting in an interior spreads joy around it by the colors, which calm us.

Color was not given to us in order that we should imitate Nature. It was given to us so that we can express our…

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…

I have always tried to hide my efforts and wished my works to have a light joyousness of springtime which never lets anyone suspect…

The chief function of color should be to serve expression as well as possible.

One gets into a state of creativity by conscious work.

My pictures are made up of four or five colors that collide with one another…

What I dream of is an art of balance.

...I am driven on by an idea that I really only grasp as it grows with the picture.

I don't paint things. I only paint the difference between things.

After a half-century of hard work and reflection the wall is still there.