I've been forty years discovering that the queen of all colors is black.
Henri MatisseRead
The essential thing is to work in a state of mind that approaches prayer.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of a mindful and spiritual approach to work, akin to prayer.
Henri Matisse suggests that when we engage in our work, we should do so with a mindset that mirrors the reverence and focus associated with prayer. This notion encourages us to approach our creative or professional endeavors with intention, mindfulness, and a deeper connection to our purpose, making the work itself a form of spiritual expression.
Themes
WorkPrayerMindsetCreativityArt
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech at an art gallery opening, one could emphasize the importance of approaching creative work like Matisse suggests.
More from Henri Matisse
All quotes βWhoever wishes to devote himself to painting should begin by cutting out his own tongue
Henri MatisseRead
Purer colors... have in themselves, independently of the objects they serve to express, a significant action on the feelings of those who look at them.
Henri MatisseRead
It is not enough to place colors, however beautiful, one beside the other; colors must also react on one another. Otherwise, you have cacophony.
Henri MatisseRead
Color, even more than drawing, is a means of liberation.
Henri MatisseRead
Don't try to be original. Be simple. Be good technically, and if there is something in you, it will come out.
Henri MatisseRead
Similar quotes
Before I was born my mother was in great agony of spirit and in a tragic situation. She could take no food except iced oysters and champagne. If people ask me when I began to dance, I reply 'In my mother's womb, probably as a result of the oysters and Champagne.'
Isadora DuncanRead
Suffice to say that the theme (the WHAT of the movie) is going to determine the style (the HOW of the movie).
Sidney LumetRead
I could hear it sometimes, but I couldn't play it. I'd been getting bored with the stereotyped changes that were being used. I found that by using the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with related changes, I could play the thing I'd been hearing.
Charlie ParkerRead
I don't own any of my own paintings because a Picasso original costs several thousand dollars and that's a luxury I cannot afford.
Pablo PicassoRead
Poetry has been to me its own exceeding great reward; it has given me the habit of wishing to discover the good and beautiful in all that meets and surrounds me.
Samuel Taylor ColeridgeRead
You could make the most beautiful film, and that weekend it's raining too hard on the East Coast, and no one goes out. Artists should have a chance to do it again. That's the challenge: Women artists don't get a second chance. People-of-color artists don't get a second chance. You're put in director's jail, and that's a wrap.
Ava DuvernayRead