“Composition, the aim of which is expression, alters itself according to the surface to be covered. If I take a sheet of paper of given dimensions I will jot down a drawing which will have a necessary relation to its format – I would not repeat this drawing on another sheet of different dimensions, for instance on a rectangular sheet.... a drawing must have a power of expansion which can bring to life the space which surrounds it.”

Source: 1905 - 1910, Notes d'un Peintre' (Notes of a Painter) (1908), p. 410

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Henri Matisse60

French artist 1869–1954

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