When the pair visited La Grenouillère they made the leap in style from the sketchy views of the 1860s to the early Impressionism that was to sweep the world over the coming decades. If Impressionism had a single moment of birth, it’s surely in the summer of 1869 at La Grenouillère. Monet’s Bathers at la Grenouillère is his early statement of his Impressionist agenda, seen in the detail below. The pair realised that Impressionism was about these instants sketched with visible brushstrokes. When viewed as a whole, Bonnat’s painting appears finely detailed, and lacks the visible brushstrokes of Impressionist style.