Matthew Collings TV - Great Artists in Their Own Words TV - Henri Matisse - Guillaume Apollinaire - Art of Faith TV - Becoming Matisse TV - Tim Marlow TV - Matisse from Tate Modern TV -
Modern Art & Beauty: What is beauty? People think art must be beautiful, that beauty is art’s main purpose. But modern art people strangely don’t think that. In fact in modern art today beauty is completely out as a purpose. Matthew Collings, This is Modern Art III: Lovely Lovely, Channel 4 1999
This is the leader of the beauty cult: Henri Matisse who’ll never be annoying, just nice. ibid.
I could never understand the idea of Matisse; he didn’t seem to have an idea. He was always talked about in terms of beautiful colour … Then I got the idea, it’s beauty itself that Matisse stands for. ibid.
Matisse made traditional western art new by mixing in non-western things like distortion. ibid.
He [Matisse] also stands for awkwardness and oddness turning into beauty. ibid.
Matisse’s new works were great hymns to harmony and tranquillity. Great Artists in Their Own Words I: The Future is Now 1907-1939, BBC 2013
Matisse: ‘I was happiest when I couldn’t sell my paintings.’ ibid.
Matisse: ‘Without hard work, talent is not enough.’ ibid.
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
For my part I have never avoided the influence of others. I would have considered it cowardice and a lack of sincerity toward myself. Henri Matisse
You study, you learn, but you guard the original naïveté. Henri Matisse
There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted. Henri Matisse
A picture must possess a real power to generate light ... for a long time now I’ve been conscious of expressing myself through light or rather in light. Henri Matisse
I have always tried to hide my efforts and wished my works to have the light joyousness of springtime which never lets anyone suspect the labours it has cost me. Henri Matisse
What I am after above all is expression. Henri Matisse
Creativity takes courage. Henri Matisse
What I dream of in art is 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
The work is an emanation, a projection of self. My drawings and my canvasses are pieces of myself. Their totality constitutes Henri Matisse. Henri Matisse, cited Matisse from Tate Modern & Moma, BBC 2022
140,337. Scissors can acquire more feeling for line than pencil or charcoal. Cutting directly into colour reminds me of sculptors carving directly into stone. The cut-out is what I have now found the simplest and most direct way to express myself. Henry Matisse, cited Matisse from Tate Modern & Moma, BBC 2022
We are not here in the presence of an extravagant or an extremist undertaking: Matisse’s art is eminently reasonable. Guillaume Apollinaire, article La Falange, 1907
Chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary de Vence: Matisse designed the ceramic walls and floor, the stained glass, the murals, the furnishings and even the robes for the priests. Art of Faith: Christianity, Sky Arts 2012
Matisse is one of the most well-loved painters of the twentieth century. Best known for his cut-outs, childlike images cut directly into sheets of vibrant colour, he wanted his art to transcend the darkness and the violence of the twentieth century. Becoming Matisse, BBC 2020
Underneath the creator of the cut-outs was a real rebel, a revolutionary, a man who risked everything to tear up the rules of Western art. ibid.
He was ridiculed by everyone. ibid.