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A distinction is made between artists who work directly from nature and those who work purely from imagination. Neither if these methods should be preferred to the exclusion of the other. Often both are used in turn by the same man.

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
Turns
Methods
Often
Directly
Artist
Distinction
Nature
Method
Used
Artists
Methodology
Work
Neither
Exclusion
Made
Turn
Preferred
Men
Imagination
Purely

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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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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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I don't paint things. I only paint the difference between things.
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A work of art must carry in itself its complete significance and impose it upon the beholder even before he can identify the subject-matter.
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Color exists in itself, possessing its own beauty.
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When a painting is finished, it's like a new born child, and the artist himself must have time for understanding. How then do you expect an amateur to understand that which the artist dos not yet comprehend.
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Did not the artists of the great age of Japanese art change names many times during their careers? I like that they wanted to safeguard their freedom.
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From the first shock of the contemplation of a face depends the principal sensation which guides me throughout the entire execution of a portrait.
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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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Beauty comes from the balance between two and three dimensions, between abstraction and representation - I seek the equilibrium behind changing appearances.
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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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What interests me most is neither still life nor landscape, but the human figure.
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The residuum of another's expression can never be related to one's own feeling.
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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.
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I do not repudiate any of my paintings but there isn't one of them that I would not redo differently, if I had it to redo. My destination is always the same but I work out a different route to get there.
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After a half-century of hard work and reflection the wall is still there.
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Starting to paint, I felt gloriously free, quiet, and alone.
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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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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 arrive is to be in prison.
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