This place [Breitner's new residential location at the Jacob van Campen-straat (De Pijp district), Amsterdam — a newly built street with construction activities all around], is just about the same as the Hobbema-straat, and that is precisely not the character of Amsterdam..
What I lack are the skills of painting, the profession which I don't know, and now I see that the French [artists] possess this so extremely strong. I do believe that you can learn it all here. I am in Paris now. When someone is richer than me and he wants me to stay here for a year or half a year (for a few thousand francs) my future will have a lot of more certainty than when I must go back to Holland after eight days… I hope you will be able to fulfill my wish; I also put enough trust in you that you will do this, if you can. Waiting for your letter with a lot of anxiety, I remain
Myself, I will paint the people in the street and in the houses, the streets and houses they have built, life in general. I will attempt to be 'le peintre du peuple' (the painter of the people), or rather I am that already, because I want to be. I want to paint history, and I will, but history in its' broadest sense. A market, a wharf, a river, a group of soldiers under a burning sun or in the snow..