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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

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Henri Matisse
Age: 84 †
Born: 1869
Born: December 31
Died: 1954
Died: November 3
Artist
Designer
Drawer
Exlibrist
Graphic Artist
Painter
Printmaker
Sculptor
Le Cateau
Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse
Henri Emile Benoît Matisse
Henri Emile Benoit Matisse
Anri Matiss
Henri-Emile-Benoît Matisse
Henri-Emile-Benoit Matisse
H. Matisse
matisse h.
h. matisse
matisse henri
Henri-Matisse
Matisse
Hands
Boxes
Thing
Held
Life
Towards
Like
Loves
Plunges
Color
Plunge
Knew
Threw
Moment
Colors
Moments
Beast

More quotes by Henri Matisse

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Creation begins with vision.
Henri Matisse
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When I put a green, it is not grass. When I put a blue, it is not the sky.
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To arrive is to be in prison.
Henri Matisse
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The arts have a development which comes not only from the individual but also from a whole acquired force, the civilization which precedes us. One cannot do just anything. A talented artist cannot do whatever he pleases. If he only used his gifts, he would not exist. We are not the masters of what we produce. It is imposed on us.
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With greater completeness and abstraction, I have attained a form filtered to its essentials.
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Creation is the artist's true function where there is no creation there is no art.
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All that is not useful in a picture is detrimental. A work of art must be harmonious in its entirety for superfluous details would, in the mind of the beholder, encroach upon the essential elements.
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When I started to paint I felt transported into a kind of paradise... In everyday life I was usually bored and vexed... Starting to paint I felt gloriously free.
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...I am driven on by an idea that I really only grasp as it grows with the picture.
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I don't paint things. I only paint the difference between things.
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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
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If I close my eyes, I see things better than with my eyes open.
Henri Matisse
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Truly, I'm not joking when I thank my lucky stars for the awful operation I had, since it has made me young again and philosophical which means that I don't want to fritter away the new lease on life I've been given.
Henri Matisse
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Color, even more than drawing, is a means of liberation.
Henri Matisse
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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
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Truth and reality in art do not arise until you no longer understand what you are doing and are capable of but nevertheless sense a power that grows in proportion to your resistance.
Henri Matisse
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What's so astonishing about not understanding? There are so many things in art, beginning with art itself, that one doesn't understand. A painter doesn't see everything that he has put in his painting.
Henri Matisse
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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.
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The artist begins with a vision - a creative operation requiring an effort.
Henri Matisse
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I simply try to put down colors which render my sensation
Henri Matisse