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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.

Henri Matisse
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With color one obtains an energy that seems to stem from witchcraft.
Henri Matisse
Cutting into color reminds me of the sculptor's direct carving.
Henri Matisse
Derive happiness in oneself from a good day's work, from illuminating the fog that surrounds us.
Henri Matisse
Jazz is rhythm and meaning.
Henri Matisse
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
Work cures everything.
Henri Matisse
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
I do not literally paint that table, but the emotion it produces upon me.
Henri Matisse
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.
Henri Matisse
Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence.
Henri Matisse
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.
Henri Matisse
Impressionism is the newspaper of the soul.
Henri Matisse
In the beginning you must subject yourself to the influence of nature. You must be able to walk firmly on the ground before you start walking on a tightrope.
Henri Matisse
It has bothered me all my life that I do not paint like everybody else.
Henri Matisse
Exactitude is not truth.
Henri Matisse
I wouldn't mind turning into a vermilion goldfish.
Henri Matisse
I have been no more than a medium, as it were.
Henri Matisse
I have always tried to hide my efforts and wished my works to have a light joyousness of springtime which never lets anyone suspect the labors it has cost me.
Henri Matisse
He who loves, flies, runs, and rejoices; he is free and nothing holds him back.
Henri Matisse
I don't paint things. I only paint the difference between things.
Henri Matisse
Creativity takes courage.
Henri Matisse
There are always flowers for those who want to see them.
Henri Matisse
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
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
I'm growing old, I delight in the past.
Henri Matisse
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
My curves are not crazy.
Henri Matisse
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
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.
Henri Matisse
In love, the one who runs away is the winner.
Henri Matisse
Instinct must be thwarted just as one prunes the branches of a tree so that it will grow better.
Henri Matisse
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.
Henri Matisse
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
An artist should never be a prisoner of himself, prisoner of style, prisoner of reputation, prisoner of success.
Henri Matisse
To look at something as though we had never seen it before requires great courage.
Henri Matisse
Precision is not reality.
Henri Matisse
Purer colors have in themselves independently of the objects they serve to express a significant action on the feelings of those who look at them.
Henri Matisse
Color helps to express light not the physical phenomenon but the only light that really exists that in the artists brain.
Henri Matisse
If drawing belongs to the world of spirit and color to that of the senses you must draw first to cultivate the spirit.
Henri Matisse
Drawing is putting a line around an idea.
Henri Matisse
Remember, a line cannot exist alone; it always brings a companion along. Do remember that one line does nothing; it is only in relation to another that it creates a volume.
Henri Matisse
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.
Henri Matisse
I did my sculpture as a painter. I did not work as a sculptor.
Henri Matisse
When I eat a tomato I look at it the way anyone else would. But when I paint a tomato, then I see it differently.
Henri Matisse
Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life.
Michael Korda
The principal rule of art is to please and to move. All the other rules were created to achieve this first one.
Jean Racine
I grew up with art from the innocent age of ten - with art, but with no sense of identity.
John Lone
One does not devote one's life in art to shock an audience.
Richard Foreman