Tuesday, 2 October 1883

I have Julian to dinner with the journalist Bagnitsky, who wrote about his studio in the Novoïe Vremia. The princess and the priest are also present — I might as well call him the archpriest, since that is his true rank.
Julian says that Concarneau is madness at this season.
And what am I going to do there? Have I in mind a painting that absolutely requires those parts? Not at all — I want vast horizons, I want to make atmospheric studies… where the eye has nothing to plunge into. I want open spaces, mists…
And what if instead I went to Arcachon? There would be much sun, and in that southern land I could make evening studies for my Holy Women — but before the Holy Women I want a misty painting: skies and silver horizons, and over them, in vigorous relief, silhouettes…
Let us go to Concarneau.
And Arcachon? Arcachon.
I can go there afterward…