“Desenhar é como fazer um gesto expressivo mas com a vantagem da permanência.”
Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence.
Fonte: Christian Science Monitor, 25 de Março de 1985
Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse foi um artista francês, conhecido por seu uso da cor e sua arte de desenhar, fluida e original. Foi um desenhista, gravurista e escultor, mas é principalmente conhecido como um pintor. Matisse é considerado, juntamente com Picasso e Marcel Duchamp, como um dos três artistas seminais do século XX, responsável por uma evolução significativa na pintura e na escultura. Embora fosse inicialmente rotulado de fauvista , na década de 1920 ele foi cada vez mais aclamado como um defensor da tradição clássica na pintura francesa. Seu domínio da linguagem expressiva da cor e do desenho, exibido em um conjunto de obras ao longo de mais de meio século, valeram-lhe o reconhecimento como uma figura de liderança na arte moderna. Wikipedia

“Desenhar é como fazer um gesto expressivo mas com a vantagem da permanência.”
Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence.
Fonte: Christian Science Monitor, 25 de Março de 1985
“Another word for creativity is courage.”
Variante: Creativity takes courage.
"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.
1905 - 1910, Notes of a Painter' (1908)
1905 - 1910, Notes of a Painter' (1908)
In a letter to a friend, Nice 1918, as quoted in 'Matisse & Picasso', Paul Trachtman, Smithsonian Magazine, February 2003, p. 6
1910s
“The artist begins with a vision — a creative operation requiring effort. Creativity takes courage.”
As quoted in Artist to Artist : Inspiration and Advice from Visual Artists Past & Present (1998), p. 62
Posthumous quotes
Un musicien a dit: en art la vérité, le réel commence quand on ne comprend plus rien à ce qu'on fait, à ce q'uon sait, et qu'il reste en vous une énergie d'autant plus forte qu'elle est contrariée, compressée, comprimée. Il faut alors se présenter avec la plus grande humilité, tout-blanc, tout pur, candide, le cerveau semblant-vide, dans un état d'esprit analogue à celui du communiant approchant la Sainte Table. Il faut évidemment avoir tout son acquis derrière soi et avoir su garder la fraîcheur de l'Instinct.
1940s, Jazz (1947)
“I have been no more than a medium, as it were.”
As quoted in Smithsonian (November 1986)
Posthumous quotes
Quote of Matisse in his notebook, c. April 1945; as cited in 'Matisse & Picasso', Paul Trachtman, Smithsonian Magazine, February 2003, p. 6
1940s
Quote of Matisse in his letter to Sergei Shchukin [the Russian buyer of his still-life w:The Dessert: Harmony in Red (The Red Room), that year], 6 augustus 1908; as quoted by w:Hilary Spurling, The Unknown Matisse: Man of the North, 1869 – 1908, Penguin UK, 28 Sep, 2006, note 182
1900s
“Impressionism is the newspaper of the soul.”
As quoted in Matisse (1984) by Pierre Schneider
Posthumous quotes
Fonte: 1905 - 1910, Notes d'un Peintre' (Notes of a Painter) (1908), p. 410
Statement by Matisse to Tériade; as quoted by Tériade in 'Constance de Fauvisme', in 'Minotaure' (15 October 1936), translated by Jack Flam in Matisse on Art (1995)
1930s
Fonte: 1900s, Notes d'un Peintre (Notes of a Painter) (1908), p. 411
Fonte: 1900s, Notes d'un Peintre (Notes of a Painter) (1908), p. 410
Fonte: 1900s, Notes d'un Peintre (Notes of a Painter) (1908), p. 413
“I don't paint things. I only paint the differences between things.”
Je ne peins pas les choses. Je ne peins que les différences entre les choses.
"Henri Matisse: contre vents et marées : peinture et livres illustrés de 1939 à 1943"
1930s