Iorga's tolerance for the national bias in historiography and his own political profile were complemented in the field of literature and the arts by his strong belief in didacticism. Art's mission was, in his view, to educate and empower the Romanian peasant. The rejection of art for art's sake, whose indifference in front of nationality issues enraged the historian, was notably illustrated by his 1902 letter to the like-minded "Luceafărul" editors, which stated: "You gentlemen should not allow aesthetic preoccupations to play the decisive part, and you are not granted such circumstances as to dedicate yourselves to pure art. ... Do not imitate ..., do not allow yourselves to be tempted by things you have read elsewhere. Write about things from your country and about the Romanian soul therein." His ambition was to contribute an alternative to "Junimist" literary history, and, according to comparatist John Neubauer, for the first time integrate "the various Romanian texts and writers into a grand narrative of an organic and spontaneous growth of native creativity, based on local tradition and folklore." Iorga described painter Nicolae Grigorescu as the purveyor of national pride, and was enthusiastic about Stoica D., the war artist. He recommended artists to study handicrafts, even though, an adversary of the pastiche, he strongly objected to Brâncovenesc revival style taken up by his generation. His own monographs on Romanian art and folklore, admired in their time by art historian Gheorghe Oprescu, were later rated by ethologist Romulus Vulcănescu a sample of microhistory, rather than a groundbreaking new research.