Matisse on Art | 
pickAlthough, Matisse repeats certain statements over the years, it says something of his faith in his methods. The interviews and essays are chronologically organized, and gives us a close look at how Matisse evolved personally and professionally throughout his long career. His ideas on taking from nature, relationships among colors, and focusing on our own sensations are concepts I found inspiring as an artist. A great read for any art history nerd.
“Hatred, rancor, and the spirit of vengeance are useless baggage to the artist. His road is difficult enough and he should cleanse his soul of everything that could make it more so.”
“I constantly felt aware of the importance of my decision, and despite the certitude that I had found my true path, one in which I was in my own element and not hemmed in as in my earlier life, still I was frightened, realizing that there was no turning back. So I plunged headlong into my work, following the principle that I had heard expressed all through my young life, which was ‘hurry up!‘ Like my parents, I got on with my work…”
“Why do you paint, M. Matisse?”
“Why, to translate my emotions, the feelings and the reactions of my sensibility through color and drawing, which neither the most perfect camera, even in color, nor the cinema, can do.”
“But what use to tell you how I would do it? I feel it one way, you would feel it another. When you paint it you must have no preconceived idea; you must enter into it as into a virgin forest; you must place yourself in communion with nature, with that nature… In the moment of painting you will think of no other artists, no other spectators; the others will not exist for you, only yourself and nature.”
“Your canvas is the drama, isn‘t it, between yourself and nature…”
“Very often, the difficulty for an artist is that he doesn‘t realize the quality of his emotion and that his reason leads his emotion astray. He should use his reason only for control.”
I finished #theoctunnumi (which I loved) and now this is my current read. I‘m currently taking an Art History course in my Graphic Design program, and this book was quoted several times in my textbook, so I just had to find it.
Not exactly the one I read but close enough. A short but in depth reflexion by Matisse on how he worked, what drove his inspiration and how he saw his art. Much like a musical composition. #arthistory
