Blog Archives
Pearls from artists* # 679
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
PC: In your painting, you’ve always kept this speed of movement. One senses that you work something out slowly, deep down, that it’s hard work, but there’s always something fresh about its expression
HM: That’s because I revise my notion several times over. People often add or superimpose completing things without changing their plan, whereas I rework my plan every time. I always start again, working from the previous state. I try to work in a contemplative state, which is very difficult: contemplation is inaction and I act in contemplation.
In all the studies I’ve made from my own ideas, there’s never been a faux pas because I’ve always unconsciously had a feeling for the goal; I’ve made my way toward it the way one heads north, following the compass. What I’ve done, I’ve done by instinct, always with my sights on a goal I still hope to reach today. I’ve completed my apprenticeship now. All I ask is four or five years to realize the goal.
PC: Delacroix said that too. Great artists never look back.
HM: Delacroix also said – ten years after he’d left the place – “I’m just beginning to see Morocco.” He needed the perspective. Rodin said to an artist, “You need to stand back a long way for sculpture.” To which the student replied, “Master, my studio is only ten meters wide.”
Chatting With Henri Matisse: The Lost 1941 Interview, Henri Matisse with Pierre Courthion, edited by Serge Guilbaut
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Pearls from artists* # 678
Along the Seine, Paris, France
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
When I was a bit weary, losing hope, I would go out and walk across Paris. Sometimes I would meet an art lover who would say a word to me, nothing binding for him, but all the same it would buck me up a bit. For example, he might say: “What are you up to? I’d love to see what you’ve done. I’ll come and see you on Thursday at eleven. I’d go home feeling like a new man; I’d tell my wife how enthusiastic I felt; but on Thursday at ten I’d get an express letter saying, “Dear friend, please excuse me, something has come up.” But that wouldn’t matter so much because I’d made a new start. The deal had fallen through, but it’d still helped because it had given me new momentum.
Chatting With Henri Matisse: The Lost 1941 Interview, Henri Matisse with Pierre Courthion, edited by Serge Guilbaut
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 675
Working
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Before, I’d never really had a taste for anything much. The things people wanted me to do left me cold. But the moment I had that paint box in my hands, I felt that this was my life. Like a cow given a sight of grass, I just headed straight into it, to the understandable despair of my father, who’d put me through other subjects. I was entranced; this was it. Here was a sort of Paradise regained, where I was completely free, alone and at peace – whereas in other things that I’d been made to do, I’d always been a bit bored and ill at ease.
For me, it was the same experience, but with soft pastel. – BR
Chatting with Henri Matisse: The Lost 1941 Interview edited by Serge Guilbaut
Comments are welcome!
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