Henri Matisse Quotes

When I paint green, it doesn't mean grass; when I paint blue, it doesn't mean sky.

What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter - a soothing, calming influence on the mind, rather like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue.

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

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

For my part I have never avoided the influence of others. I would have considered it cowardice and a lack of sincerity toward myself.

A new painting is a unique event, a birth, which enriches the universe as it is grasped by the human mind, by bringing a new form into it.

Would not it be best to leave room to mystery?

A certain blue enters your soul

Work cures everything.

I have always sought to be understood and, while I was taken to task by critics or colleagues, I thought they were right, assuming I had not been clear enough to be understood. This assumption allowed me to work my whole life without hatred and even without bitterness toward criticism, regardless of its source. I counted solely on the clarity of expression of my work to gain my ends. Hatred, rancor, and the spirit of vengeance are useless baggage to the artist. His road is difficult enough for him to cleanse his soul of everything which could make it more so.

I didn't expect to recover from my second operation but since I did, I consider that I'm living on borrowed time. Every day that dawns is a gift to me and I take it in that way. I accept it gratefully without looking beyond it. I completely forget my physical suffering and all the unpleasantness of my present condition and I think only of the joy of seeing the sun rise once more and of being able to work a little bit, even under difficult conditions.

Don't wait for inspiration. It comes while one is working.

I wouldn't mind turning into a vermilion goldfish.

The importance of an artist is to be measured by the quantity of new signs which he has introduced to the language of art.

Jazz is rhythm and meaning.

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

The splitting up of color [as Impressionists did] brought the splitting up of form and contour . . . Everything is reduced to a mere sensation of the retina, but one which destroys all tranquility of surface and contour. Objects are differentiated only by the luminosity that is given them.

Truth and reality in art do not arise until you no longer understand what you are doing and are capable of but nevertheless sense a power that grows in proportion to your resistance.

All art worthy of the name is religious.

If I close my eyes, I see things better than with my eyes open.

...The more a picture has to give, the greater it is.

What I dream of is an art of balance.

The Barnes Foundation is the only sane place to see art in America.

In art, truth and reality begin when one no longer understands what one is doing or what one knows, and when there remains an energy that is all the stronger for being constrained, controlled and compressed.

The artists must see all things as if he were seeing them for the first time. All his life he must see as he did when he was a child.

An artist must not feel under any constraint.

A young woman has young claws, well sharpened. If she has character, that is. And if she hasn't so much the worse for you.

I would like to recapture that freshness of vision which is characteristic of extreme youth when all the world is new to it.

There are always flowers for those who want to see them.

I don't paint women, I paint pictures. . . What I am after above all is expression. If in a portrait I put eyes, a nose, a mouth, there isn't much use; on the contrary it paralyses the imagination of the spectator, and obliges us to see the person in a certain way.

Nothing can be accomplished without love.

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

Derive happiness in oneself from a good day's work, from illuminating the fog that surrounds us.

Cutting straight into color reminds me of the direct carving of the sculptor.

An artist is an explorer.

It is only after years of preparation that the young artist should touch color - not color used descriptively, that is, but as a means of personal expression.

...for whether we want to or not, we belong to our time and we share in its opinions, its feelings, even its delusions.

I am unable to distinguish between the feeling I have for life and my way of expressing it.

A rapid rendering of a landscape represents only one moment of its existence. I prefer, by insisting upon its essential character, to risk losing charm in order to gain greater stability.

Impressionism is the newspaper of the soul.

Color, even more than drawing, is a means of liberation.

Much of the beauty that arises in art comes from the struggle an artist wages with his limited medium.

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

What interests me most is neither still life nor landscape, but the human figure.

Color exists in itself, possessing its own beauty.

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

Seek the strongest color effect possible... the content is of no importance.

It has always bothered me that I don't paint like everyone else