“If upon a white canvas I jot down some sensations of blue, of green, of red – every new brush stroke diminishes the importance of the preceding ones. Suppose I set out to paint an interior... If I paint a green near the red, if I paint in a yellow floor, there must still be between this green, this yellow, and the white of the canvas a relation that will be satisfactory to me. But these several tones mutually weaken one another. It is necessary, therefore, that the various elements that I use be so balanced that they do not destroy one another..”

— Henri Matisse

Source: 1905 - 1910, Notes d'un Peintre' (Notes of a Painter) (1908), p. 411

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Henri Matisse 60

French artist 1869–1954

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Henri Matisse 60

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