Quotes from Henri Matisse

Drawing is putting a line round an idea.

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

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.

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.

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.

What I dream of is an art that is equilibrated, pure and calm, free of disturbing subject matter, an art that can be for any intellectual worker, for the business man or the writer, a means of soothing the soul, something like a comfortable armchair in which one can rest from physical fatigue.

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

What interests me most is neither still life nor landscape, but the human figure. It is through it that I best succeed in expressing the almost religious feeling I have towards life.

I want to reach that condensation of sensations that constitutes a picture.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

We ought to view ourselves with the same curiosity and openness with which we study a tree, the sky or a thought, because we too are linked to the entire universe.

To look at something as though we had never seen it before requires great courage.

Another word for creativity is courage.

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

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

Nothing can be accomplished without love.

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.

Exactitude is not truth.