Impressionism is only direct sensation. All great painters were less or more impressionists. It is mainly a question of instinct, and much simpler than Sargent thinks. But he went on to agree that impressionists had noted how strong

Claude Monet, quoted in: Stephen Lucius Gwynn. Claude Monet and His Garden: The Story of an Artist's Paradise, Macmillan, 1934, p. 69: Comment by Monet to the English biographer Sir Evan Charteris.