Henri Matisse

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.

The importance of an artist is to be measured by the quantity of new signs which he has introduced to the language of art.

The essential thing is to work in a state of mind that approaches prayer.

Drawing is . . . not an exercise of particular dexterity, but above all a means of expressing intimate feelings and moods.

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.

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.

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.

It has bothered me all my life that I do not paint like everybody else.

It has always bothered me that I don't paint like everyone else

I am unable to make any distinction between the feeling I get from life and the way I translate that feeling into painting.

There's nothing clinically wrong with me, only an emotional imbalance - I pass too quickly from the wildest enthusiasm to the blackest despair.

It would be a mistake to ascribe this creative power to an inborn talent. In art, the genius creator is not just a gifted being, but a person who has succeeded in arranging for their appointed end, a complex of activities, of which the work is the outcome. The artist begins with a vision — a creative operation requiring an effort. Creativity takes courage.

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.

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.

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.

Truth and reality in art do not arise until you no longer understand what you are doing and are capable of but nevertheless sense a power that grows in proportion to your resistance.

In art, truth and reality begin when one no longer understands what one is doing or what one knows, and when there remains an energy that is all the stronger for being constrained, controlled and compressed.

A thimbleful of red is redder than a bucketful.

The chief function of color should be to serve expression as well as possible.

Seek for the boldest color possible, content is irrelevant.

An artist must not feel under any constraint.