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
design means personal touch
It is only after years of preparation that the young artist should touch color - not color used descriptively, that is, but as a means of personal expression.
stars philosophical mean
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.
mean exercise drawing
Drawing is . . . not an exercise of particular dexterity, but above all a means of expressing intimate feelings and moods.
mean drawing color
Color, even more than drawing, is a means of liberation.
mean artist expression
It is only after years of preparation that the young artist should touch color - not color used descriptively, that is, but as a means of personal expression.
mean cutting two
From Bonheur de Vivre - I was thirty-five then - to this cut-out - I am eighty-two - I have not changed; not in the way my friends mean who want to compliment me, no matter what, on my good health, but because all this time I have looked for the same things, which I have perhaps realized by different means...
dream art mean
Slowly I discovered the secret of my art. It consists of a meditation on nature, on the expression of a dream which is always inspired by reality. With more involvement and regularity, I learned to push each study in a certain direction. Little by little the notion that painting is a means of expression asserted itself, and that one can express the same thing in several ways. Exactitude is not truth, Delacroix liked to say.
mean color sky
When I paint green, it doesn't mean grass; when I paint blue, it doesn't mean sky.
attacks panic reading
I've been reading about the panic attacks Matisse had when he was painting.
both directly exclusion imagination methods nature neither painters preferred purely turn work
A distinction is made between painters who work directly from nature and those who work purely from imagination. Personally, I think neither of these methods must be preferred to the exclusion of the other. Both may be used in turn by the same indivi
best color decided favorable intervals introduce prints reason separate size suited
I'd like to introduce my color prints under the most favorable of conditions. For this reason I must separate them by intervals of a different character. I decided that handwriting was best suited for this purpose. The exceptional size of the writing
sculpture work
I did my sculpture as a painter. I did not work as a sculptor.
asked felt leaves mess money remain saw value
When I saw what a mess everything was in I asked for my money back on the ticket. I would have felt I was deserting. If everyone of any value leaves France, what will remain of France?
artist backs copied miss picture turning work
Those who work in a preconceived style, deliberately turning their backs on nature, miss the truth. An artist must recognize, when he is reasoning, that his picture is an artifice; but when he is painting, he should feel that he has copied nature. An