The importance of an artist is to be measured by the quantity of new signs which he has introduced to the language of art.
Henri MatisseA picture must possess a real power to generate light and for a long time now I've been conscious of expressing myself through light or rather in light.
Henri MatisseWhen a painting is finished, it's like a new born child, and the artist himself must have time for understanding. How then do you expect an amateur to understand that which the artist dos not yet comprehend.
Henri MatisseSlowly I discovered the secret of my art. It consists of a meditation on nature, on the expression of a dream which is always inspired by reality. With more involvement and regularity, I learned to push each study in a certain direction. Little by little the notion that painting is a means of expression asserted itself, and that one can express the same thing in several ways. Exactitude is not truth, Delacroix liked to say.
Henri Matisse