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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.

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
Depends
Execution
Face
Contemplation
Faces
Sensations
Firsts
Principal
First
Shock
Guides
Portrait
Throughout
Sensation
Entire
Portraits

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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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I don't know whether I believe in God or not. I think, really, I'm some sort of Buddhist. But the essential thing is to put oneself in a frame of mind which is close to that of prayer.
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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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Expression for me does not reside in passions glowing in a human face or manifested by violent movement. The entire arrangement of my picture is expressive the place occupied by my figures, the empty space around them, the proportions, everything has its share.
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A rapid rendering of a landscape represents only one moment of its existence. I prefer, by insisting upon its essential character, to risk losing charm in order to gain greater stability.
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With greater completeness and abstraction, I have attained a form filtered to its essentials.
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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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If I close my eyes, I see things better than with my eyes open.
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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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It has always bothered me that I don't paint like everyone else
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The Barnes Foundation is the only sane place to see art in America.
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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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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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I wouldn't mind turning into a vermilion goldfish.
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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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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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I've been forty years discovering that the queen of all colors is black.
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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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He who loves, flies, runs, and rejoices he is free and nothing holds him back.
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Whoever wishes to devote himself to painting should begin by cutting out his own tongue
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