Henri Matisse Light Quotations

A picture must possess a real power to generate light and for a long time now I've been conscious of expressing myself through light or rather in light.

I have always tried to hide my efforts and wished my works to have a light joyousness of springtime which never lets anyone suspect the labors it has cost me.

It is with color that you render light, though you must also feel this light, have it within yourself.

Color helps to express light, not the physical phenomenon, but the only light that really exists, that in the artist's brain.

If people knew what Matisse, supposedly the painter of happiness, had gone through, the anguish and tragedy he had to overcome to manage to capture that light which has never left him, if people knew all that, they would also realize that this happiness, this light, this dispassionate wisdom which seems to be mine, are sometimes well-deserved, given the severity of my trials.