The essential thing is to spring forth, to express the bolt of lightning one senses upon contact with a thing. The function of the artist is not to translate an observation but to express the shock of the object on his nature; the shock, with the original reaction.

— Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse Quotes

Don’t wait for inspiration. It comes while one is working.

— Henri Matisse

Friday for Work Painting

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.

— Henri Matisse

I shan’t get free of my emotion by copying the tree faithfully, or by drawing its leaves one by one in the common language, but only after identifying myself with it.

— Henri Matisse

The effort to see things without distortion takes something like courage and this courage is essential to the artist, who has to look at everything as though he saw it for the first time.

— Henri Matisse

Fit the parts together, one into the other, and build your figure like a carpenter builds a house. Everything must be constructed, composed of parts that make a whole...

— Henri Matisse

Each work of art is a collection of signs invented during the picture’s execution to suit the needs of their position. Taken out of the composition for which they were created, these signs have no further use.

— Henri Matisse

Did not the artists of the great age of Japanese art change names many times during their careers? I like that; they wanted to safeguard their freedom.

— Henri Matisse

Put a colour upon a canvas – it not only colours with that colour the part of the canvas to which the colour has been applied, but it also colours the surrounding space with the complementary.

— Henri Matisse

It is through the human figure that I best succeed in expressing the nearly religious feeling that I have towards life.

— Henri Matisse

The residuum of another’s expression can never be related to one’s own feeling.

— Henri Matisse

Never ruin a good painting with the truth.

— Henri Matisse

With greater completeness and abstraction, I have attained a form filtered to its essentials.

— Henri Matisse

From the first shock of the contemplation of a face depends the principal sensation which guides me throughout the entire execution of a portrait.

— Henri Matisse

The model for me is a touchstone, it is a door which I must break open in order to reach the garden in which I am alone and feel good, even the model exists only for what use I can make of it.

— Henri Matisse

Cezanne, you see, is a sort of God of painting.

— Henri Matisse

The sign is determined at the moment I use it and for the object of which it must form a part. For this reason I cannot determine in advance signs which never change, and which would be like writing: that would paralyze the freedom of my invention.

— Henri Matisse

The things that are acquired consciously permit us to express ourselves unconsciously with a certain richness.

— Henri Matisse

I have simply wished to assert the reasoned and independent feeling of my own individuality within a total knowledge of tradition.

— Henri Matisse

What matters most to me? To work with my model until I have it enough in me to be able to improvise, to let my hand run free...

— Henri Matisse

A colourist makes his presence known even in a simple charcoal drawing.

— Henri Matisse

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