Henri Matisse Quotes about Art - Page 2

Truth and reality in art do not arise until you no longer understand what you are doing and are capable of but nevertheless sense a power that grows in proportion to your resistance.

All that is not useful in a picture is detrimental. A work of art must be harmonious in its entirety; for superfluous details would, in the mind of the beholder, encroach upon the essential elements.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Much of the beauty that arises in art comes from the struggle an artist wages with his limited medium.

What I dream of is an art of balance.

...I am driven on by an idea that I really only grasp as it grows with the picture.

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.

What interests me most is neither still life nor landscape, but the human figure.

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.

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.

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

Creation is the artist's true function; where there is no creation there is no art.

Cutting straight into color reminds me of the direct carving of the sculptor.

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.

If it is practiced by a man of taste, the photograph will have the appearance of art (but) the photographer must...intervene as little as possible, so as not to lose the objective charm which it naturally possesses.

It has bothered me all my life that I do not paint like everybody else.

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.

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.