Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence. — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
Aren't you [Tahiti Lagoons] one of the seven wonders of the Paradise of painters? — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
To draw is to make an idea precise. Drawing is the precision of thought. — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
The artist begins with a vision - a creative operation requiring effort. Creativity takes courage. — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
It has bothered me all my life that I do not paint like everybody else. — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
I do not literally paint that table, but the emotion it produces upon me. — 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
Time extracts various values from a painter's work. When these values are exhausted the pictures are forgotten, and the more a picture… — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
A work should contain its total meaning within itself and should impress it on the spectator before he even knows the subject. — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
You want to paint? First of all you must cut off your tongue because your decision takes away from you the right… — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
I never retouch a sketch: I take a canvas the same size, as I may change the composition somewhat. But I always… — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
I have to create an object which resembles the tree. The sign for a tree, and not the sign that other artists… — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
I was very embarrassed when my canvases began to fetch high prices. I saw myself condemned to a future of nothing but… — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
The portrait is one of the most curious art forms. It demands special qualities in the artist, and an almost total kinship… — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
An artist is an explorer. He has to begin by self-discovery and by observation of his own procedure. After that he must… — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
Truth and reality in art begin at the point where the artist ceases to understand what he is doing and capable of… — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
I do not repudiate any of my paintings but there isn't one of them that I would not redo differently, if I… — 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
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
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
All that I really have to recount are observations and notes made during the course of my life as a painter. I… — 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
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 colourist makes his presence known even in a simple charcoal drawing. — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
The artist begins with a vision - a creative operation requiring an effort. — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
It is only after years of preparation that the young artist should touch color - not color used descriptively, that is, but… — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
If drawing belongs to the world of spirit and color to that of the senses, you must draw first to cultivate the… — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
When I started to paint I felt transported into a kind of paradise... In everyday life I was usually bored and vexed...… — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
Drawing is . . . not an exercise of particular dexterity, but above all a means of expressing intimate feelings and moods. — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
“I do not distinguish between the construction of a book and that of a painting and I always proceed from the simple… — 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
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
When an artist or student draws a nude figure with painstaking care, the result is drawing, and not emotion. — Henri Matisse Copy Share Image
I am unable to make any distinction between the feeling I get from life and the way I translate that feeling into… — 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
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
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