A collection of thoughts and quotations by Henri Matisse on art, painting, creativity, joy, healing, design, emotion, sculpture, expression and courage.
26 Notable Quotes By Henri Matisse, Whose Paintings Speak Louder Than Words
There are always flowers for those who want to see them.
Henri Matisse
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.
We ought to view ourselves with the same curiosity and openness with which we study a tree, the sky or a thought, because we too are linked to the entire universe.
Henri Matisse
To look at something as though we had never seen it before requires great courage.
You study, you learn, but you guard the original naïveté. It has to be within you, as desire for drink is within the drunkard or love is within the lover.
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.
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.
Don’t wait for inspiration. It comes while one is working.
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.
An artist must never be a prisoner. Prisoner? An artist should never be a prisoner of himself, prisoner of style, prisoner of reputation, prisoner of success, etc
