Henri Matisse

Hello! My name is Henri Matisse, and I was an artist who loved to paint with bright, happy colors. I was born a very long time ago, on December 31st, 1869, in a small town in France. When I was a young man, I was studying to become a lawyer. It was a serious job, and it was what my family expected of me. But one day, I became sick and had to stay in bed for a long time. To help me pass the hours, my mother gave me a special gift: a box of paints. As soon as I started mixing the colors and brushing them onto the canvas, I felt a wonderful sense of joy. It was like discovering a secret world full of sunshine and happiness, and I knew right then that I didn't want to be a lawyer anymore. I wanted to be an artist.

I decided to follow my dream and moved to the big city of Paris to study art. I loved everything about painting, but what I loved most was color. I didn't want to use colors just to show what things really looked like. I wanted to use colors to show how I felt! Around the year 1905, some of my artist friends and I began painting in a brand new way. We used reds, blues, and yellows that were brighter and bolder than any you would see in nature. If I felt a tree should be bright pink, I painted it bright pink! Our art was so different and full of wild energy that some people who saw it were shocked. They gave us a nickname, 'Les Fauves,' which is French for 'The Wild Beasts.' We thought it was a perfect name for our powerful, colorful art.

As I grew older, my body changed. In the 1940s, I became ill again and often had to use a wheelchair, which made it hard for me to stand at an easel and paint with a brush. But I did not want to stop creating art! So, I invented a new way to make pictures. I asked my assistants to paint large sheets of paper with all the beautiful, bright colors I loved. Then, I would take a pair of scissors and cut out different shapes—like leaves, stars, and birds. It felt like I was drawing with my scissors. I would arrange these colorful paper shapes on a wall or a large canvas until they looked just right, creating big, cheerful pictures filled with life.

I lived a long and very colorful life, all the way to 84 years old. My biggest hope was that my art would bring people a feeling of peace and happiness. I once said I wanted my art to be like a comfortable armchair where people could rest their minds. Today, my paintings and paper cut-outs are famous all over the world. You can find them in big museums, where their joyful colors and simple shapes still make people smile, just as I had always hoped they would.