It is as if the art was improvised, much like Monet's portrait of flowers gives the impression that the artist simply happened upon a cluster of flowers one day, and was moved to paint by the beauty he saw before him. Of course, it must be argued that neither composition, although they create such an extemporaneous impression, was truly spontaneous. Both works were carefully and consciously planned by the artist and composer respectively, they did not simply bubble forth from Monet or Debussy's emotions. But the fact that the artists strove to create this impression is telling, and suggests a willingness to let pure emotion enter the realm of art in a way that it was not allowed to before, when standards of painting were rigorously governed by the French Academy, and when all musical compositions had to have a conventional structure.

Ironically, in creating such spontaneity,...

Monet painted the natural world, rather than artificially and intellectual constructed subjects from an idealized projection of Classical history, as was the rage during the Neo-Classical period of art. Debussy's work has some of the qualities of folk music, or music improvised during a community dance or rite. But this is again a reminder that the idea that art that was supposed to be personal, could defy realism and rationality, embrace mythology and the surreal is not a 20th century phenomenon of the modern or postmodern age. Instead, it is an aesthetic that can be traced back to the 19th century, and even before Monet and Debussy. In striving to convey their personal impressions of pastoral life, both composers returned to a pastoral approach to composing, as well as pastoral subjects like flora and fauna.