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

More quotes by Henri Matisse

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If I close my eyes, I see things better than with my eyes open.
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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.
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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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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.
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Ever since there have been men, man has given himself over to too little joy. That alone, my brothers, is our original sin. I should believe only in a God who understood how to dance.
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Color, even more than drawing, is a means of liberation.
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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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Put a colour upon a canvas - it not only colours with that colour the part of the canvas to which the colour has been applied, but it also colours the surrounding space with the complementary.
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I have been no more than a medium, as it were.
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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.
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Impressionism is the newspaper of the soul.
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Don't wait for inspiration. It comes while one is working.
Henri Matisse
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Would not it be best to leave room to mystery?
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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For my part I have never avoided the influence of others. I would have considered it cowardice and a lack of sincerity toward myself.
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I simply try to put down colors which render my sensation
Henri Matisse
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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.
Henri Matisse
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If it is practiced by a man of taste, the photograph will have the appearance of art (but) the photographer must...intervene as little as possible, so as not to lose the objective charm which it naturally possesses.
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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.
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I am unable to distinguish between the feeling I have for life and my way of expressing it.
Henri Matisse