Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri-Émile-Benoît Matissewas a French artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionPainter
Date of Birth31 December 1869
CountryFrance
country color expression
I am curious about color as one would be visiting a new country, because I have never concentrated so closely on color expression. Up to now I have waited at the gates of the temple.
simple color rainbow
Simple colours can affect the intimate feelings with all the more force because they are simple.
color drawing spirit
Drawing is of the spirit; color is of the senses.
character order risk
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.
color rainbow choices
The use of expressive colors is felt to be one of the basic elements of the modern mentality, an historical necessity, beyond choice.
beauty feelings body
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.
mean exercise drawing
Drawing is . . . not an exercise of particular dexterity, but above all a means of expressing intimate feelings and moods.
unique mind events
A new painting is a unique event, a birth, which enriches the universe as it is grasped by the human mind, by bringing a new form into it.
emotional despair imbalance
There's nothing clinically wrong with me, only an emotional imbalance - I pass too quickly from the wildest enthusiasm to the blackest despair.
art giving greater
...The more a picture has to give, the greater it is.
art ideas driven
...I am driven on by an idea that I really only grasp as it grows with the picture.
character artist expression
An artist who wants to transpose a composition onto a larger canvas must conceive it over again in order to preserve its expression; he must alter its character and not just fill in the squares into which he has divided his canvas.
stories ifs written
If my story were ever to be written truthfully from start to finish, it would amaze everyone.
color expression function
The main function of color should be to serve expression.