In a 1939 letter to Pierre-Georges Bruguière, Hélion revealed his long-range plan:For ten years I think I shall look, admire and love the life around us—passers-by, houses, gardens, shops, trades and everyday movement. Then, when I have mastered the means and acquired the baggage of characters and attitudes to give me the ease I now have in non-figurative art, I shall begin on a new period, which I have glimpsed in the last few days: I shall give painting back its moral and didactic power. I shall attack great scenes that will no longer be simply descriptive, administrative, but also 'significant', like the great works of Poussin.