Top 199 Quotes & Sayings by Henri Matisse

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a French artist Henri Matisse.

Last updated on September 16, 2024.

Henri Émile Benoît Matisse was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter. Matisse is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso, as one of the artists who best helped to define the revolutionary developments in the visual arts throughout the opening decades of the twentieth century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture.

French - Artist | December 31, 1869 - November 3, 1954

Source: Wikipedia

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 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

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

Henri Matisse

In love, the one who runs away is the winner.

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

I wouldn't mind turning into a vermilion goldfish.

Henri Matisse

I don't paint things. I only paint the difference between things.

Henri Matisse

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

Henri Matisse

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

Henri Matisse

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

Henri Matisse

Cutting into color reminds me of the sculptor's direct carving.

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

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

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

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

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

Impressionism is the newspaper of the soul.

Henri Matisse

My curves are not crazy.

Henri Matisse

Derive happiness in oneself from a good day's work, from illuminating the fog that surrounds us.

Henri Matisse

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

Henri Matisse

There are always flowers for those who want to see them.

Henri Matisse

Creativity takes courage.

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

He who loves, flies, runs, and rejoices; he is free and nothing holds him back.

Henri Matisse

I do not literally paint that table, but the emotion it produces upon me.

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

Jazz is rhythm and meaning.

Henri Matisse

Exactitude is not truth.

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

Work cures everything.

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

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

The things that are acquired consciously permit us to express ourselves unconsciously with a certain richness.

Henri Matisse

Art is an escape from reality.

Henri Matisse

There are flowers everywhere, for those who bother to look.

Henri Matisse

Don't try to be original. Be simple. Be good technically, and if there is something in you, it will come out.

Henri Matisse

Drawing is putting a line around an idea.

Henri Matisse

The essential thing is to work in a state of mind that approaches prayer.

Henri Matisse

Beauty comes from the balance between two and three dimensions, between abstraction and representation - I seek the equilibrium behind changing appearances.

Henri Matisse

If I close my eyes, I see things better than with my eyes open.

Henri Matisse

I've been forty years discovering that the queen of all colors is black.

Henri Matisse

The artists must see all things as if he were seeing them for the first time. All his life he must see as he did when he was a child.

Henri Matisse

Everything that we see in our daily lives is more or less distorted by acquired habits and this is perhaps more evident in an age like ours when cinema posters and magazines present us every day with a flood of ready-made images which are to the eye what prejudices are to the mind. The effort to see things without distortion demands a kind of courage; and this courage is essential to the artist, who has to look at everything as though he were seeing it for the first time.

Henri Matisse

Color was not given to us in order that we should imitate Nature. It was given to us so that we can express our emotions.

Henri Matisse

Would not it be best to leave room to mystery?

Henri Matisse

Never ruin a good painting with the truth.

Henri Matisse

My choice of colors does not rest on any scientific theory, it is based on observation, on feeling, on the experience of my sensibility.

Henri Matisse

The artist has to look at life as he did when he was a child. If he loses that faculty, he cannot express himself in an original, that is, a personal way.

Henri Matisse

Seek for the boldest color possible, content is irrelevant.

Henri Matisse

An artist is an explorer.

Henri Matisse

Creative people are curious, flexible, and independent with a tremendous spirit and a love of play.

Henri Matisse

Another word for creativity is courage.

Henri Matisse

Nothing can be accomplished without love.

Henri Matisse

An artist is an explorer. He has to begin by self-discovery and by observation of his own procedure. After that he must not feel under any constraint.

Henri Matisse

When you're out of will power you call on stubbornness, that's the trick.

Henri Matisse

It is not enough to place colors, however beautiful, one beside the other; colors must also react on one another. Otherwise, you have cacophony.

Henri Matisse

Don't wait for inspiration. It comes while one is working.

Henri Matisse

Color exists in itself, possessing its own beauty.

Henri Matisse

A certain blue enters your soul. A certain red has an effect on your blood-pressure.

Henri Matisse