Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Henri Matisse (French Painter, Sculptor)

Henri Matisse, fully Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse (1869–1954) was a French painter, sculptor, printmaker, and lithographer. He is judged, alongside Pablo Picasso, one of the two foremost artists of the modern art movement. Matisse was the most outstanding personality of Fauvism, the first revolution in 20th-century art.

Born at Le Cateau-Cambrésis, near Cambrai in northern France, Matisse abandoned the study of law after taking up painting during an illness in 1890. He studied with the academic painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau and with the illustrator Gustave Moreau.

Influenced by the Impressionists, Matisse’s intense, exuberant use of color caused his style and that of his circle to be dubbed “Fauvism.” His themes were primarily domestic or figurative, and a distinct Mediterranean verve reigns in the treatment.

After the downfall of Fauvism, Matisse continued to use color dramatically. By 1909, his fame had spread worldwide. He exhibited in Russia and the United States, and settled in Nice in 1917. His large figure compositions, such as The Dance (1909,) foreshowed a new style based on a simple reductive line, giving a rhythmic decorative pattern on a flat ground of vibrant color.

Matisse designed for the ballet and illustrated the works of such authors as the poet Charles Baudelaire. Matisse’s works include Woman with a Hat (1905,) Joy of Life (1906,) and The Blue Nude (1907.)

At age 80, Matisse decorated the Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence (the “Matisse Chapel”) at Vence, France, and in his last years, produced brilliant colored paper cutouts and stencils.

The Musée Matisse in Nice has drawn together one of the world’s largest collections of Matisse’s works and traces his artistic beginnings and his evolution through his last works.

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by Henri Matisse

Time extracts various values from a painter’s work. When these values are exhausted the pictures are forgotten, and the more a picture has to give, the greater it is.
Henri Matisse
Topics: Art

Drawing is putting a line round an idea.
Henri Matisse
Topics: Ideas

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.
Henri Matisse
Topics: Prayer

I would like to recapture that freshness of vision which is characteristic of extreme youth when all the world is new to it.
Henri Matisse
Topics: Youth

There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted.
Henri Matisse
Topics: Art, Arts, Artists, Vision

Derive happiness in oneself from a good day’s work, from illuminating the fog that surrounds us.
Henri Matisse
Topics: Work

There are always flowers for those who want to see them.
Henri Matisse

To look at something as though we had never seen it before requires great courage.
Henri Matisse

The only valid thing in art is the one thing that cannot be explained, to explain away the mystery of a great painting would do irreplaceable harm, for whenever you explain or define something you substitute the explanation or the definition for the
Henri Matisse
Topics: Explanation

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.
Henri Matisse
Topics: Harmony

What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter … a soothing, calming influence on the mind, rather like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue.
Henri Matisse
Topics: Balance, Serenity, Art

In the beginning you must subject yourself to the influence of nature. You must be able to walk firmly on the ground before you start walking of a tightrope.
Henri Matisse
Topics: Beginnings, Nature

There are wonderful things in real jazz, the talent for improvisation, the liveliness, the being at one with the audience.
Henri Matisse
Topics: Jazz, Audiences

With color one obtains an energy that seems to stem from witchcraft.
Henri Matisse

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.
Henri Matisse
Topics: Harmony

Jazz is rhythm and meaning.
Henri Matisse
Topics: Jazz

I have always tried to hide my efforts and wished my works to have a light joyousness of springtime which never lets anyone suspect the labors it has cost me.
Henri Matisse
Topics: Effort

Ever since there have been men, man has given himself over to too little joy. That alone, my brothers, is our original sin. I should believe only in a God who understood how to dance.
Henri Matisse

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