 He met Charles Baudelaire and the next year started writing art criticism under the pen-name "Champfleury" for the journal "L'Artiste".He was one of the first to promote the work of Gustave Courbet, in an article appearing in an issue of "Le Pamphlet" in 1848.In 1850, during a time when the Spanish school was still largely ignored, he advocated the work of El Greco.