Henri Matisse Quotes

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..

Instinct must be thwarted just as one prunes the branches of a tree so that it will grow better.

There are cathedrals everywhere for those with eyes to see them.

Dessiner avec les ciseaux: découper à vif dans la couleur me rappelle la taille directe des sculpteurs.

There are flowers everywhere for those who want to see them

The simplest means are those which best enable an artist to express himself. His means of expression must derive almost all of necessity from his temperament.

"I do not literally paint that table, but the emotion it produces upon me." After a pause full of intense thought on my part, I asked: "But if one hasn't always emotion. What then?" "Do not paint," he quickly answered. "When I came in here to work this morning I had no emotion, so I took a horseback ride. When I returned I felt like painting, and had all the emotion I wanted.

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

You study, you learn, but you guard the original naiveté. It has to be within you, as desire for drink is within the drunkard or love is within the lover.

Un musicien a dit: en art la vérité, le réel commence quand on ne comprend plus rien à ce qu'on fait, à ce q'uon sait, et qu'il reste en vous une énergie d'autant plus forte qu'elle est contrariée, compressée, comprimée. Il faut alors se présenter avec la plus grande humilité, tout-blanc, tout pur, candide, le cerveau semblant-vide, dans un état d'esprit analogue à celui du communiant approchant la Sainte Table. Il faut évidemment avoir tout son acquis derrière soi et avoir su garder la fraîcheur de l'Instinct.

An artist must never be a prisoner. Prisoner? An artist should never be a prisoner of himself, prisoner of style, prisoner of reputation, prisoner of success, etc

El artista comienza con una visión, una operación creativa que requiere un esfuerzo. La creatividad requiere coraje.

Do I believe in God? Yes, when I am working. When I am submissive and modest, I feel myself to be greatly helped by someone who causes me to do things that exceed my capabilities. However, I cannot acknowledge him because it is as if I were to find myself before a conjuror whose sleight of hand eludes me.

To arrive is to be in prison.

I am unable to make any distinction between the feeling I get from life and the way I translate that feeling into painting.