“A work of art must carry in itself its complete significance and impose it upon the beholder even before he can identify the subject-matter. When I see the Giotto frescoes at Padua I do not trouble to recognize which scene of the life of Christ I have before me, but I perceive instantly the sentiment which radiates from it and which is instinct in the composition in every line and color.”

Source: 1900s, Notes d'un Peintre (Notes of a Painter) (1908), p. 413

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Henri Matisse60

French artist 1869–1954

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