Denis was a great admirer of Paul Cézanne; he traveled to Cézanne's home in 1896, and wrote an article reporting Cézanne's comment: "I want to make of impressionism something solid and durable, like the art in museums." In the article, Denis described Cézanne as "the Poussin of impressionism" and called him the founder of modern neo-classicism. One of the most important works of Denis from this period is "Homage to Cézanne" (1900), painted following the death of his friend Paul Cézanne. In the foreground, it portrays the friends of Cézanne, several of them former Nabis; from left to right (Odilon Redon, Édouard Vuillard, the critic André Mellerio, Ambroise Vollard, Denis himself, Paul Sérusier, Paul Ranson, Ker-Xavier Roussel, Pierre Bonnard, and Denis's wife Marthe). The painting appears very somber because they are all dressed in black for mourning, but it also has a second message; the paintings displayed behind the figures and on the easel represent the transition of modern art, from works by Gauguin and Renoir on the back wall to the painting by Cézanne on the easel, which illustrated, from Denis's point of view, the transition from impressionism and symbolism toward neo-classicism.