“What I am after, above all, is expression. Sometimes it has been
conceded that I have a certain technical ability but that, my ambition
being limited, I am unable to proceed beyond a purely visual
satisfaction such as can be procured from the mere sight of a picture.
But the purpose of a painter must not be conceived as separate from his
pictorial means, and these pictorial means must be the more complete (I
do not mean complicated) the deeper is his thought. I am unable to
distinguish between the feeling I have for life and my way of expressing
it.”

Henri Matisse: A Master of the Modern Era