Henri Matisse Quotes

84 Sourced Quotes

Suppose I want to paint a woman's body: first of all I imbue it with grace and charm, but I know that I must give something more. I will condense the meaning of this body by seeking its essential lines. The charm will be less apparent at first glance, but it must eventually emerge from the new image which will have a broader meaning, one more fully human.

Henri Matisse
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 possible, so as not to lose the objective charm which it naturally possesses.

Henri Matisse
At each stage I reach a balance, a conclusion. At the next sitting, if I find that there is a weakness in the whole, I make my way back into the picture by means of the weakness — I re-enter through the breach — and I reconceive the whole. Thus everything becomes fluid again.

Henri Matisse
I will repeat what I once said to Guillaume Apollinaire: "For my part I have never avoided the influence of others. I would have considered it cowardice and a lack of sincerity toward myself."

Henri Matisse
If upon a white canvas I jot down some sensations of blue, of green, of red – every new brush stroke diminishes the importance of the preceding ones. Suppose I set out to paint an interior... If I paint a green near the red, if I paint in a yellow floor, there must still be between this green, this yellow, and the white of the canvas a relation that will be satisfactory to me. But these several tones mutually weaken one another. It is necessary, therefore, that the various elements that I use be so balanced that they do not destroy one another..

Henri Matisse
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.

Henri Matisse
The arts have a development which comes not only from the individual but also from a whole acquired force, the civilization which precedes us. One cannot do just anything. A talented artist cannot do whatever he pleases. If he only used his gifts, he would not exist. We are not the masters of what we produce. It is imposed on us.

Henri Matisse
I have always tried to hide my efforts and wished my works to have the light joyousness of springtime which never lets anyone suspect the labors it has cost me..

Henri Matisse
Slowly 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
A picture must possess a real power to generate light.... for a long time now I've been conscious of expressing myself through light or rather in light.

Henri Matisse
I know that Seurat is completely the opposite of a romantic, which I am, but with a good portion of the scientific, of the rationalist, which creates the struggle from which I sometimes emerge the victor, but exhausted.

Henri Matisse
I try to condense the meaning of this body [of a woman] by drawing its essential lines. The charm will then become less apparent at first glance, but in the long run it will begin emanate from the new image. This image at the same time will be enriched by a wider meaning, a more comprehensively human one, while the charm, being less apparent, will not be its only characteristic. It will be merely one element in the general conception of the figure.

Henri Matisse
Composition, the aim of which is expression, alters itself according to the surface to be covered. If I take a sheet of paper of given dimensions I will jot down a drawing which will have a necessary relation to its format – I would not repeat this drawing on another sheet of different dimensions, for instance on a rectangular sheet.... a drawing must have a power of expansion which can bring to life the space which surrounds it.

Henri Matisse
There is an impelling proportion of tones that may lead me to change the shape of a figure or to transform my composition. Until I have achieved this proportion in all the parts of a composition I strive towards it and keep on working. Then a moment comes when all the parts have found their definite relationships, and from then on it would be impossible for me to add a stroke to my picture without having to repaint it entirely.

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

Henri Matisse
Rules have no existence outside of individuals: otherwise a good professor would be as great a genius as Racine.

Henri Matisse
You must forget all your theories, all your ideas before the subject. What part of these is really your own will be expressed in your expression of the emotion awakened in you by the subject.

Henri Matisse
Colours have their own distinctive beauty that you have to preserve, just as in music you try to preserve sounds. It is a question of organization, of finding the arrangement that will keep the beauty and freshness of the colour

Henri Matisse
I want to reach the state of condensation of sensations which constitutes a picture. Perhaps I might be satisfied momentarily with a work finished at one sitting, but I would soon get bored looking at it; therefore, I prefer to continue working on it so that later I may recognize it as a work of my mind..

Henri Matisse
The artist begins with a vision — a creative operation requiring effort. Creativity takes courage.

Henri Matisse
Drawing with scissors: To cut to the quick in color reminds me of the direct cutting of sculptors.

Henri Matisse
The use of expressive colors is felt to be one of the basic elements of the modern mentality, an historical necessity, beyond choice.

Henri Matisse
He who loves, flies, runs, and rejoices; he is free and nothing holds him back.

Henri Matisse
What I dream of is an art that is equilibrated, pure and calm, free of disturbing subject matter, an art that can be for any intellectual worker, for the business man or the writer, a means of soothing the soul, something like a comfortable armchair in which one can rest from physical fatigue.

Henri Matisse