Henri Matisse quotes: top famous quotes and sayings by Henri Matisse

Top Henri Matisse Quotes

Browse top 38 most favorite famous quotes and sayings by Henri Matisse.

Favorite Henri Matisse Quotes

1. "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." ~ Henri Matisse

2. "I do not distinguish between the construction of a book and that of a painting and I always proceed from the simple to the complex." - 1946" ~ Henri Matisse

3. "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." ~ Henri Matisse

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

5. "Another word for creativity is courage." ~ Henri Matisse

6. "You study, you learn, but you guard the original naïveté. It has to be within you, as desire for drink is within the drunkard or love is within the lover." ~ Henri Matisse

7. "Nothing can be accomplished without love." ~ Henri Matisse

8. "Exactitude is not truth." ~ Henri Matisse

9. "To arrive is to be in prison." ~ Henri Matisse

10. "I am unable to distinguish between the feeling I have for life and my way of expressing it." ~ Henri Matisse

11. "Derive happiness in oneself from a good day's work, from illumination the fog that surround" ~ Henri Matisse

12. "I am unable to make any distinction between the feeling I get from life and the way I translate that feeling into painting." ~ Henri Matisse

13. "Whoever wishes to devote himself to painting should begin by cutting out his own tongue" ~ Henri Matisse

14. "Si je crois en Dieu? Oui, quand je travaille. Quand je suis soumis et modeste, je me sens tellement aidé par quelqu'un qui me fait faire des choses qui me surpassent." ~ Henri Matisse

15. "My curves are not crazy." ~ Henri Matisse

16. "With color one obtains an energy that seems to stem from witchcraft." ~ Henri Matisse

17. "Work cures everything." ~ Henri Matisse

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

19. "An artist must possess Nature. He must identify himself with her rhythm, by efforts that will prepare the mastery which will later enable him to express himself in his own language." ~ Henri Matisse

20. "A young woman has young claws, well sharpened. If she has character, that is. And if she hasn't so much the worse for you." ~ Henri Matisse

21. "Cutting into color reminds me of the sculptor's direct carving." ~ Henri Matisse

22. "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." ~ Henri Matisse

23. "It is only after years of preparation that the young artist should touch color - not color used descriptively, that is, but as a means of personal expression." ~ Henri Matisse

24. "I have been no more than a medium, as it were." ~ Henri Matisse

25. "I wouldn't mind turning into a vermilion goldfish." ~ Henri Matisse

26. "To look at something as though we had never seen it before requires great courage." ~ Henri Matisse

27. "From the moment I held the box of colors in my hands, I knew this was my life. I threw myself into it like a beast that plunges towards the thing it loves." ~ Henri Matisse

28. "There are always flowers for those who want to see them." ~ Henri Matisse

29. "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." ~ Henri Matisse

30. "He who loves, flies, runs, and rejoices; he is free and nothing holds him back." ~ Henri Matisse

31. "Creativity takes courage." ~ Henri Matisse

32. "In love, the one who runs away is the winner." ~ Henri Matisse

33. "I don't paint things. I only paint the difference between things." ~ Henri Matisse

34. "Impressionism is the newspaper of the soul." ~ Henri Matisse

35. "An artist must never be a prisoner. Prisoner? An artist should never be a prisoner of himself, prisoner of style, prisoner of reputation, prisoner of success, etc." ~ Henri Matisse

36. "Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence." ~ Henri Matisse

37. "I do not literally paint that table, but the emotion it produces upon me." ~ Henri Matisse

38. "Jazz is rhythm and meaning." ~ Henri Matisse

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