Despite rhetoric, the new art club was not entirely opposed to tradition, and occasionally appealed to it as a basis for cultural reconstruction. "Salonul" boasted among its honorary members the lionized oil painter Nicolae Grigorescu, who had trained with the Barbizon school. Bogdan-Pitești was especially fond of Luchian's work, and, in an 1896 article for the cultural magazine "Revista Orientală", spoke of him as "an admirable colorist", a "free spirit", and a purveyor of "revolutionary ideas". He boosted Luchian's self-confidence, urging him to apply his talents to illustrating "an idea", and was entirely adverse to Grigorescu's traditionalist manner. Luchian still used Grigorescu as a source of inspiration in his own work, prompting scholars to argue that Grigorescu's "Salonul Independenților" reception was Bogdan-Pitești's unwilling concession to his star protégé.