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
I don’t paint things. I only paint the difference between things.
Henri Matisse
There are always flowers for those who want to see them.
Henri Matisse
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.
Henri Matisse
A picture must possess a real power to generate light and for a long time now I’ve been conscious of expressing myself through light or rather in light.
Henri Matisse
Impressionism is the newspaper of the soul.
Henri Matisse
I wouldn’t mind turning into a vermilion goldfish.
Henri Matisse
Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence.
Henri Matisse
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.
Henri Matisse
I have been no more than a medium, as it were.
Henri Matisse
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
Derive happiness in oneself from a good day’s work, from illuminating the fog that surrounds us.
Henri Matisse
In love, the one who runs away is the winner.
Henri Matisse
Work cures everything.
Henri Matisse
My curves are not crazy.
Henri Matisse
Jazz is rhythm and meaning.
Henri Matisse