256 Quotes by Henri Matisse

Nothing can be accomplished without love.

Whoever wishes to devote himself to painting should begin by cutting out his own tongue

Seek for the boldest color possible, content is irrelevant.

I have to create an object which resembles the tree. The sign for a tree, and not the sign that other artists may have found for the tree.

Colours have their own distinctive beauty that you have to preserve, just as in music you try to preserve sounds. It is a question of organization, of finding the arrangement that will keep the beauty and freshness of the colour

The role of the artist, like that of the scholar, consists of seizing current truths often repeated to him, but which will take on new meaning for him and which he will make his own when he has grasped their deepest significance.

Color exists in itself, possessing its own beauty.

I simply try to put down colors which render my sensation

From Bonheur de Vivre - I was thirty-five then - to this cut-out - I am eighty-two - I have not changed; not in the way my friends mean who want to compliment me, no matter what, on my good health, but because all this time I have looked for the same things, which I have perhaps realized by different means...