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A work should contain its total meaning within itself and should impress it on the spectator before he even knows the subject.

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
Total
Subject
Meaning
Subjects
Spectator
Within
Spectators
Even
Contain
Work
Impress
Artistic

More quotes by 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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My curves are not crazy.
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It is with color that you render light, though you must also feel this light, have it within yourself.
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Creation begins with vision.
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Seeing is in itself a creative act which requires effort.
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The chief function of color should be to serve expression as well as possible.
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Drawing is putting a line around an idea.
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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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There are wonderful things in Jazz, the improvisation, the liveliness, the being at one with the audience.
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Art is an escape from reality.
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Love wants to rise, not to be held down by anything base... He who loves flies, runs, and rejoices he is free and nothing holds him back. Derive happiness from yourself, from a good day's work, from the clearing that it makes in the fog that surrounds us.
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Color, even more than drawing, is a means of liberation.
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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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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.
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To draw is to make an idea precise. Drawing is the precision of thought.
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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.
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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.
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Nothing can be accomplished without love.
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The use of expressive colors is felt to be one of the basic elements of the modern mentality, an historical necessity, beyond choice.
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Above all, an artist must never be too easily satisfied with what he has done.
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