Quote

The effort to see things without distortion takes something like courage and this courage is essential to the artist, who has to look at everything as though he saw it for the first time.

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
Everything
Saws
Without
Courage
Looks
Takes
First
Effort
Something
Though
Things
Artist
Distortion
Time
Look
Essential
Like
Firsts
Essentials

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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.
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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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Photographs will always be impressive because they show us nature, and all artists will find in them a world of sensations. The photographer must therefore intervene as little as possible, so as not to cause photography to lose the objective charm which it naturally possesses, notwithstanding its defects.
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What interests me most is neither still life nor landscape, but the human figure.
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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.
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I shan't get free of my emotion by copying the tree faithfully, or by drawing its leaves one by one in the common language, but only after identifying myself with it.
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Do remember that one line does nothing it is only in relation to another that it creates a volume.
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My models, my human figures, are never like extras in an interior. They are the main theme of my work. I depend absolutely on my model.
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You want to paint? First of all you must cut off your tongue because your decision takes away from you the right to express yourself with anything but your brush.
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A young painter who cannot liberate himself from the influence of past generations is digging his own grave.
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The artist begins with a vision - a creative operation requiring an effort.
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If drawing belongs to the world of spirit and color to that of the senses, you must draw first to cultivate the spirit.
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After a half-century of hard work and reflection the wall is still there.
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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.
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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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The living model, the naked body of a woman, is the privileged seat of feeling, but also of questioning... The model must mark you, awaken in you an emotion which you seek in turn to express.
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I have to create an object which resembles the tree. The sign for a tree, and not the sign that other artists may have found for the tree.
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Fit the parts together, one into the other, and build your figure like a carpenter builds a house. Everything must be constructed, composed of parts that make a whole.
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Truth and reality in art begin at the point where the artist ceases to understand what he is doing and capable of doing - yet feels in himself a force that becomes steadily stronger... and more concentrated.
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The sign for which I forge an image has no value if it doesn't harmonize with other signs, which I must determine in the course of my invention and which are completely peculiar to it.
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