The oeuvre of Frédéric Bazille is unclassifiable. - Henri Fantin-Latour

I see Legros less often sometimes at Andler's as little as possible it means I get to bed late and I am short of funds, it is very pleasant nonetheless Courbet is so charming, Legros often goes there they get on very well he has some superb articles in the figaro. in the gazette des Beaux Arts.. ..then he will have one in the courrier du Commerce those are the ones I know about. success, women, good food, wine, beer, new acquaintances as a result of these articles, in short an accolade !!!!!!!!.. ..success can be harmful, it makes you relax, you sit on it and are distracted.. ..you alone should correct the faults, you know what I think of advice, correction. the gifted man should walk alone, straight to his goal, what happens is nothing, rejection, success, selling pleasing, all that is nonsense.

Well! according to the sketch your picture [which Whistler sent him in a letter] seems well-composed, the lines of sky, sea, the position of the figures all that seems very, very well done[,] on opening the letter it struck me immediately, an impression of decorative ornamentation which makes a good picture appeal to the eye as well - upside down and any other way up. Arrangement, layout, composition. etc - mysterious words harmonious laws - in no way conventional - needs of the Artist glory of the Raphael's Michelangelo's etc etc - for me a repetition a hesitation, a matter of feeling - which should also be a law, a mathematical thing, like form, like light, colour[.] I find similarities with the colour method which works by opposing colours to arrive at a harmony that is to say to make a canvas a complete whole, to put into a small space an image with all the forces all the principles of nature - [instead of showing a part of it]..

I even belief that the schools and artistic movements is past. After the Romantic movement, born of classicizing exaggeration, after the Realist movement, product of the follies of Romanticism, it may be seen that there is a great foolishness in all these ideas. We are going to achieve a personal manner of feeling.