Three of the most influential painters of the 20th Century were Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Jackson Pollock (left to right above). Their paintings inspire people around the world. Artists also find inspiration in their words and ideas.

“Creativity takes courage”

Henri Matisse mainly credited with the work he did in Fauvism, which was one of the movements which appeared prior to Cubism, and introduced many of the techniques which would be noted in this form of art which followed. Vibrant colors were a common theme. Colorism, in a radical and arbitrary form, were behind Fauvism as an art movement.

“Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.”

In 1909, Picasso and French artist Georges Braque co-founded an art movement known as cubism. Actually, it was a French art critic Louis Vauxcelles who first called it “bizarre cubiques” or cubism, after noting that Picasso and Braque’s paintings are “full of little cubes.”

“Every good painter paints what he is.”

Jackson Pollock took an unconventional approach to painting unconventional pictures. He preferred laying his canvas on the floor instead of setting it on an easel, and rarely touched it with his brush — that is, whenever he happened to use a brush, which wasn’t often. Instead, Pollock would drip paint from knives or sticks or other such objects while he frantically moved around the canvas trying to create the right combination of color, pattern, and texture. With this defiant attitude, Pollock helped define the genre of Abstract Expressionism and make New York City the art capital of the world.