Frases de Henri Matisse

„Desenhar é como fazer um gesto expressivo mas com a vantagem da permanência.“

—  Henri Matisse

Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence.
Fonte: Christian Science Monitor, 25 de Março de 1985

„Na verdade, um pintor não tem outros inimigos sérios senão os seus quadros maus.“

—  Henri Matisse

„O tempo extrai vários valores de um trabalho de um pintor. Quando esses valores são esgotados, os quadros são esquecidos, e quanto mais um quadro tem a dar, mais importante ele é.“

—  Henri Matisse

„A little while ago I took a nap under an olive tree, and the color harmonies I saw were so touching. It's like a paradise you have no right to analyze, but you are a painter, for God's sake! Nice is so beautiful! Alight so soft and tender, despite its brilliance.“

—  Henri Matisse

In a letter to a friend, Nice 1918, as quoted in 'Matisse & Picasso', Paul Trachtman, Smithsonian Magazine, February 2003, p. 6
1910s

„Rules have no existence outside of individuals: otherwise a good professor would be as great a genius as Racine.“

—  Henri Matisse

1905 - 1910, Notes of a Painter' (1908)

„Another word for creativity is courage.“

—  Henri Matisse

Variante: Creativity takes courage.

„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.“

—  Henri Matisse

„Nothing can be accomplished without love.“

—  Henri Matisse

„… for whether we want to or not, we belong to our time and we share in its opinions, its feelings, even its delusions.“

—  Henri Matisse

„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.“

—  Henri Matisse

„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.“

—  Henri Matisse

„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.“

—  Henri Matisse

„Exactitude is not truth.“

—  Henri Matisse

„You study, you learn, but you guard the original naiveté. It has to be within you, as desire for drink is within the drunkard or love is within the lover.“

—  Henri Matisse

In 'Time' magazine (26 June 1950)
1950s

„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 physical suffering and all the unpleasantness of my present condition and I think only of the joy of seeing the sun rise once more and of being able to work a little bit, even under difficult conditions.“

—  Henri Matisse

„There are flowers everywhere for those who want to see them“

—  Henri Matisse

1940s, Jazz (1947)

„Slowly I discovered the secret of my art. It consists of a meditation on nature, on the expression of a dream which is always inspired by reality.“

—  Henri Matisse

"Interview with Henri Matisse" by Jacques Guenne, L'Art Vivant (15 September 1925), translated by Jack Flam in Matisse on Art (1995)
1921 - 1940
Contexto: Slowly I discovered the secret of my art. It consists of a meditation on nature, on the expression of a dream which is always inspired by reality. With more involvement and regularity, I learned to push each study in a certain direction. Little by little the notion that painting is a means of expression asserted itself, and that one can express the same thing in several ways. Exactitude is not truth, Delacroix liked to say.

„Tomorrow, Sunday, at 4 o'clock, visit from Picasso. As I'm expecting to see him tomorrow, my mind is at work. I'm doing this propaganda show [at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, 1945] with him. I can imagine the room with my pictures on one side, and his on the other. It's as if I were going to cohabit with an epileptic.“

—  Henri Matisse

Quote of Matisse in his notebook, c. April 1945; as cited in 'Matisse & Picasso', Paul Trachtman, Smithsonian Magazine, February 2003, p. 6
1940s