Henri Matisse Quotes - Page 8

It is through the human figure that I best succeed in expressing the nearly religious feeling that I have towards life.

The living model, the naked body of a woman, is the privileged seat of feeling, but also of questioning... The model must mark you, awaken in you an emotion which you seek in turn to express.

From the first shock of the contemplation of a face depends the principal sensation which guides me throughout the entire execution of a portrait.

The sign for which I forge an image has no value if it doesn't harmonize with other signs, which I must determine in the course of my invention and which are completely peculiar to it.

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

The sign is determined at the moment I use it and for the object of which it must form a part. For this reason I cannot determine in advance signs which never change, and which would be like writing: that would paralyze the freedom of my invention.

I dream of an art of balance, of quietness, something analogous to a good armchair.

The artist begins with a vision - a creative operation requiring an effort.

Fit the parts together, one into the other, and build your figure like a carpenter builds a house. Everything must be constructed, composed of parts that make a whole.

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.

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.

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.

Truly, I'm not joking when I thank my lucky stars for the awful operation I had, since it has made me young again and philosophical which means that I don't want to fritter away the new lease on life I've been given.

A work should contain its total meaning within itself and should impress it on the spectator before he even knows the subject.

Expression for me does not reside in passions glowing in a human face or manifested by violent movement. The entire arrangement of my picture is expressive; the place occupied by my figures, the empty space around them, the proportions, everything has its share.

I have been no more than a medium, as it were.

I shan't get free of my emotion by copying the tree faithfully, or by drawing its leaves one by one in the common language, but only after identifying myself with it.

A certain color tones you up. It's the concentration of timbres.

Expression is not a matter of passion mirrored on the human face or revealed by a violent gesture. When I paint a picture, its every detail is expressive.

Arrival = Prison, and the artist must never be a prisoner.

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

There are wonderful things in Jazz, the improvisation, the liveliness, the being at one with the audience.