Claude Monet on Pierre-Auguste Renoir

“I have a dream a picture of the bathing spot at the Grenouillere, for which I've made a few poor sketches, but it is a dream. Renoir, who has just spent two months here, also wants to do this painting.”

“I insist upon 'doing it alone'. Much as I enjoyed making the trip there with Renoir as a tourist, I'd find it hard to work there together. I have always worked better alone and from my own impressions.. .If he [Renoir] knew I was about to go, Renoir would doubtless want to join me and that would be equally disastrous for both of us. [Monet is painting then in Northern Italy then, on the edge of the Mediterranean.”