It took me a long time to understand my water lilies... I planted them for pleasure, and grew them without thinking of painting them... You don't absorb a landscape in a day... And then, all of a sudden, I had the revelation of the enchantment of my pond. I took up my palette.

Monet in: Marc Elder. A Giverny, chez Claude Monet (1924); as quoted in: Vivian Russell (1998) Monet's Water Lilies: The Inspiration of a Floating World. p. 19 - 1920–1926