Quote

The model for me is a touchstone, it is a door which I must break open in order to reach the garden in which I am alone and feel good, even the model exists only for what use I can make of it.

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
Feels
Doors
Touchstone
Even
Open
Touchstones
Make
Break
Model
Good
Alone
Exists
Use
Models
Order
Door
Feel
Garden
Must
Reach

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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.
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Seek the strongest color effect possible... the content is of no importance.
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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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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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...I am driven on by an idea that I really only grasp as it grows with the picture.
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The chief function of color should be to serve expression as well as possible.
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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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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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Never ruin a good painting with the truth.
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After a half-century of hard work and reflection the wall is still there.
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You study, you learn, but you guard the original naivete. It has to be within you, as desire for drink is within the drunkard or love is within the lover.
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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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There are wonderful things in Jazz, the improvisation, the liveliness, the being at one with the audience.
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When I paint green, it doesn't mean grass when I paint blue, it doesn't mean sky.
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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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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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The whole arrangement of my picture is expressive. The place occupied by the figures or objects, the empty spaces around them, the proportions, everything plays a part.
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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.
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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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The sign is determined at the moment I use it and for the object of which it must form a part. For this reason I cannot determine in advance signs which never change, and which would be like writing: that would paralyze the freedom of my invention.
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