Henri Matisse Quotes

Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence.

In a picture every part will be visible and will play the role conferred upon it, be it principal or secondary. All that is not useful in the picture is detrimental.

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.

Je ne peins pas les choses. Je ne peins que les différences entre les choses.

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.

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.

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

Expression, to my way of thinking, does not consist of the passion mirrored upon a human face or betrayed by a violent gesture. The whole arrangement of my picture is expressive. The place occupied by figures or objects, the empty spaces around them, the proportions – everything plays a part. Composition is the art of arranging in a decorative manner the various elements at the painter’s disposal for the expression of his feelings

Whoever wishes to devote himself to painting should begin by cutting out his own tongue

We ought to view ourselves with the same curiosity and openness with which we study a tree, the sky or a thought, because we too are linked to the entire universe.

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

Delacroix's composition is more entirely created, while that of Seurat employs matter organized scientifically, reproducing, presenting t our eyes objects constructed by scientific means rather than by signs, coming from our feeling. As result there is in his works a positivism, a slightly inert stability, coming from his composition, which is not the result of a creation of the mind, but of a juxtaposition of the objects. It is necessary to cross this barrier to re-feel light, colored and soft, and pure, the noblest pleasure

Il y a toujours des fleurs pour ceux qui veulent les voir.

There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted.

What I am after, above all, is expression. Sometimes it has been conceded that I have a certain technical ability but that, my ambition being limited, I am unable to proceed beyond a purely visual satisfaction such as can be procured from the mere sight of a picture. But the purpose of a painter must not be conceived as separate from his pictorial means, and these pictorial means must be the more complete (I do not mean complicated) the deeper is his thought. I am unable to distinguish between the feeling I have for life and my way of expressing it.