About Henri Matisse: Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse is known primarily as a painter.
I don't paint things. I only paint the difference between things.
Impressionism is the newspaper of the soul.
Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence.
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.
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.
You must forget all your theories, all your ideas before the subject. What part of these is really your own will be expressed in your expression of the emotion awakened in you by the subject.
From the moment I held the box of colors in my hands, I knew this was my life. I threw myself into it like a beast that plunges towards the thing it loves.
The importance of an artist is to be measured by the quantity of new signs which he has introduced to the language of art.
To look at something as though we had never seen it before requires great courage.
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.
Derive happiness in oneself from a good day's work, from illuminating the fog that surrounds us.
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.
It has bothered me all my life that I do not paint like everybody else.
You study, you learn, but you guard the original naivete. It has to be within you, as desire for drink is within the drunkard or love is within the lover.
In love, the one who runs away is the winner.
He who loves, flies, runs, and rejoices; he is free and nothing holds him back.
I didn't expect to recover from my second operation but since I did, I consider that I'm living on borrowed time. Every day that dawns is a gift to me and I take it in that way. I accept it gratefully without looking beyond it. I completely forget my...
I don't know whether I believe in God or not. I think, really, I'm some kind of a Buddhist. But the essential thing is to put oneself in a frame of mind which is close to that of prayer.
I do not distinguish between the construction of a book and that of a painting and I always proceed from the simple to the complex." - 1946
I wouldn't mind turning into a vermilion goldfish.
