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. [Illustration: 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. “I always use a preliminary canvas the same size for a sketch as for a finished picture, and I always begin with color. With large canvases this is more fatiguing, but more logical. I may have the same sentiment I obtained in the first, but this lacks solidity, and a decorative sense. I never retouch a sketch; I take a new canvas the same size, as I may change the composition somewhat. But I always strive to give the same _feeling_, while carrying it on further. A picture should, for me, always be decorative. While working _I never try to think, only to feel_. “I have a class of sixty pupils and make them draw accurately, as a student always should do at the beginning. I do not encourage them to work as I do now.”