A Quote by 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
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.
If the paying public demands naturalistic art, then an artist can use his skills to produce such pictures - but these are to be clearly distinguished from the artist's own art.
In front of the model I work with the same will to reproduce truth as if I were making a portrait. I do not correct nature, I incorporate myself into it; it directs me. I can only work with a model. The sight of human forms nourishes and comforts me.
The reason that I'm an actor, or an artist, is ultimately because I'm trying to paint a self-portrait, and the most complete and beautiful self-portrait that you can.
If men were able to be convinced that art is a precise advance knowledge of how to cope with the psychic and social consequences of the next technology, would they all become artist? Or would they begin a careful translation of new art forms into social navigation charts? I am curious to know what would happem if art were suddenly seen for what it is, namely, exact information of how to rearrange one's psyche in order to anticipate the next blow from our own extended faculties.
The beautiful is in nature, and it is encountered under the most diverse forms of reality. Once it is found it belongs to art, or rather to the artist who discovers it.
Make yourself your role model, because people who do not have qualities depend on the qualities of others to shape their own qualities.
The portrait of a person is one of the most difficult things to do. It means you must almost bring the presence of that person photographed to other people in such a way that they don't have to know that person personally, but that they are still confronted with a human being that they won't forget. That's a portrait.
It is for the artist... in portrait painting to put on canvas something more than the face the model wears for that one day; to paint the man, in short, as well as his features.
Imagine it's 1981. You're an artist, in love with art, smitten with art history. You're also a woman, with almost no mentors to look to; art history just isn't that into you. Any woman approaching art history in the early eighties was attempting to enter an almost foreign country, a restricted and exclusionary domain that spoke a private language.
A photographic portrait needs more collaboration between sitter and artist than a painted portrait.
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.
I do think there is a link between the accidental art the sciences produce and the deliberate art the artist creates, but I can't help feeling that the innocence of the accidental art of science has a power and curious beauty that artists are hard-pressed to match.
Faith as ultimate concern is an act of the total personality. It happens in the center of the personal life and includes all its elements. Faith is the most centered act of the human mind. It is not a movement of a special section or a special function of man's total being. They all are united in the act of faith.
No art, however minor, demands less than total dedication if you want to excel in it.
Remember that an artist's life is an intense search for truth. This search takes many forms. Everyone of these forms demands its own disciplines. I learned and adapted to my search. I expect nothing from you. Question the truth of anything you confront. How does it apply to yourself and the trail you are pursuing?
I don't believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there's one thing that's dangerous for an artist, it's precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and all the rest of it.
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