I found not a long-haired, slovenly-dressed, eccentric man, as I had imagined, but a fresh, healthy, robust, blonde gentleman, who looked even more German than French, and whose simple and unaffected cordiality put me directly at my ease.
Concerning his early experiences, Matisse said: “I began at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. When I opened my studio, years after, for some time I painted just like any one else. But things didn’t go at all, and I was very unhappy. Then, little by little, I began to paint as I felt. One cannot do successful work which has much feeling unless one sees the subject very simply, and one must do this in order to express one’s self as clearly as possible.
MATISSE
The Dance
“I studied in the schools mornings, and I copied at the Louvre in the afternoons for ten years. I made copies for the Government, but when I introduced some of my own emotional impressions, or personal translations of the pictures, the Government did not care to buy; it only wanted a photographic copy.”
Of his present methods he said: “I certainly do think of harmony and color, and of composition, too. Drawing is for me the art of being able to express myself with line. When an artist or student draws a nude figure with painstaking care, the result is drawing, and not emotion. A true artist cannot see color which is not harmonious. Otherwise it is a moyen, or recipe. An artist should express his feeling with the harmony or idea of color which he possesses naturally. He should not copy the walls, or objects on a table, but he should, above all, express a vision of color, the harmony of which corresponds to his feeling. And, above all, one must be honest with one’s self.
“If one feels no emotion, one should not paint. When I came in here to work this morning I had no emotion, so I took a horseback ride. When I returned I felt like painting, and had all the emotion I wanted.
“I never use pastels or water colors, and I only make studies from models, not to use in a picture—mais pour me nourrir—to strengthen my knowledge; and I never work from a previous sketch or study, but from memory. I now draw with feeling, and not anatomically. I know how to draw correctly, having studied form so long.