Henri Matisse Quotes About Art
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Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence.
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Time extracts various values from a painter's work. When these values are exhausted the pictures are forgotten, and the more a picture has to give, the greater it is.
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Impressionism is the newspaper of the soul.
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It would be a mistake to ascribe this creative power to an inborn talent. In art, the genius creator is not just a gifted being, but a person who has succeeded in arranging for their appointed end, a complex of activities, of which the work is the outcome. The artist begins with a vision — a creative operation requiring an effort. Creativity takes courage.
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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.
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A 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.
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It is my dream to create an art which is filled with balance, purity and calmness, freed from a subject matter that is disconcerting or too attention-seeking. In my paintings, I wish to create a spiritual remedy, similar to a comfortable armchair which provides rest from physical expectation for the spiritually working, the businessman as well as the artist.
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Did not the artists of the great age of Japanese art change names many times during their careers? I like that; they wanted to safeguard their freedom.
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Much of the beauty that arises in art comes from the struggle an artist wages with his limited medium.
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I want to reach that condensation of sensations that constitutes a picture.
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Art is an escape from reality.
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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.
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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.
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Don't wait for inspiration. It comes while one is working.
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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.
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The artist begins with a vision - a creative operation requiring effort. Creativity takes courage.
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I dream of an art of balance, of quietness, something analogous to a good armchair.
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With color one obtains an energy that seems to stem from witchcraft.
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Each work of art is a collection of signs invented during the picture's execution to suit the needs of their position. Taken out of the composition for which they were created, these signs have no further use.
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I don't know whether I believe in God or not. I think, really, I'm some sort of Buddhist. But the essential thing is to put oneself in a frame of mind which is close to that of prayer.
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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.
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You study, you learn, but you guard the original naivete. It has to be within you, as desire for drink is within the drunkard or love is within the lover.
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Cutting straight into color reminds me of the direct carving of the sculptor.
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A work of art must carry in itself its complete significance and impose it upon the beholder even before he can identify the subject-matter.
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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.
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Composition is the art of arranging in a decorative manner the various elements which the painter uses to express his sentiments. In a picture every separate part will be visible and... everything which has no utility in the picture is for that reason harmful.
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There are always flowers for those who want to see them.
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It is not enough to place colors, however beautiful, one beside the other; colors must also react on one another. Otherwise, you have cacophony.
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What interests me most is neither still life nor landscape, but the human figure.
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Seek the strongest color effect possible... the content is of no importance.
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