Henri Matisse Painting Quotations

I don't paint things. I only paint the difference between things.

The only valid thing in art is the one thing that cannot be explained, to explain away the mystery of a great painting would do irreplaceable harm, for whenever you explain or define something you substitute the explanation or the definition for the

Cezanne, you see, is a sort of God of painting.

Never ruin a good painting with the truth.

What's so astonishing about not understanding? There are so many things in art, beginning with art itself, that one doesn't understand. A painter doesn't see everything that he has put in his painting.

I do not repudiate any of my paintings but there isn't one of them that I would not redo differently, if I had it to redo. My destination is always the same but I work out a different route to get there.

I am unable to make any distinction between the feeling I get from life and the way I translate that feeling into painting.

There is no interruption between my older paintings and my cutouts. Just that with an increasing sense of the absolute, and more abstraction, I have achieved a form that is simplified to its essence.