The French art critic Louis Vauxcelles ... the most perceptive contemporary witness, who interviewed Monet about the work. He thought Monet had now “severed his last ties” with descriptive painting.

I get chills recalling the sheer power of art that I felt in this room at the National Portrait Gallery, as if the genius loci of Washington, D.C. was standing next to me like a ghost.

This was a technique that, some time later, in the 20th century, would be called the “gestalt brushstroke,” alluding to ...