Henri Matisse Quotes - Page 5

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.

Put a colour upon a canvas - it not only colours with that colour the part of the canvas to which the colour has been applied, but it also colours the surrounding space with the complementary.

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

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.

The whole arrangement of my picture is expressive. The place occupied by the figures or objects, the empty spaces around them, the proportions, everything plays a part.

Exactitude is not truth. [Fr., L'exactitude n'est pas la verite.]

One must, of course, have one's entire experience behind one and not have lost the freshness of instinct.

An artist must not feel under any constraint.

To draw is to make an idea precise. Drawing is the precision of thought.

I have simply wished to assert the reasoned and independent feeling of my own individuality within a total knowledge of tradition.

There's nothing clinically wrong with me, only an emotional imbalance - I pass too quickly from the wildest enthusiasm to the blackest despair.

With color one obtains an energy that seems to stem from witchcraft.

I'm growing old, I delight in the past.

When a painting is finished, it's like a new born child, and the artist himself must have time for understanding. How then do you expect an amateur to understand that which the artist dos not yet comprehend.

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

After a half-century of hard work and reflection the wall is still there.

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.

When I put a green, it is not grass. When I put a blue, it is not the sky.

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

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.

One gets into a state of creativity by conscious work.

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.

The residuum of another's expression can never be related to one's own feeling.

A distinction is made between artists who work directly from nature and those who work purely from imagination. Neither if these methods should be preferred to the exclusion of the other. Often both are used in turn by the same man.

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