"Because it was indeed a wager made by the creator of the 'Vues de Paris' [Views of Paris] and 'Mirobolus, Macadam & Cie'. A wager on the aesthetic scope of means of representation and materials held as unworthy, and which he would be the first to use in a no longer occasional, but rather systematic and exclusive way: soils and white lead, clinker, tar mixed with grit, tow, shavings, scratches, incisions and scrapings, imprints and reliefs, which one will find precisely named in the invaluable working notes of the painter. A wager, more adventurous still, on the effectiveness that the spectator would be able to recognize in these representations that are certainly barbaric, but also completely devoid of the picturesque."