entation and "its aim was to give a truthful, objective, and impartial representation of the real world, based on meticulous observation of contemporary life" (Nochlin 13). Isaacson has shown at length how, in the Déjeuner sur l'herbe, Monet had tried to be strictly contemporary, drawing, among other sources, on contemporary fashion plates and fashionable group portraits. The Déjeuner was also a response to Manet's famous work of the same name that had appeared in the Salon des Réfusés in 1863--shorn of the classicizing references in Manet's work. In the course of painting the Déjeuner, and perhaps in response to Baudelaire's "strictures on the importance of observing accurately the costume of one's own time," Monet made radical changes in dress lengths and other details of costume (Monet 69). But Monet had other problems with the painting that are hinted at in the changes in costume. He had undertaken the huge painting intending to render the illusion of three dimensions in classic fashion. But, as the changes in costume show, he was continually involved in trying to achieve an overall surface organization of contours and areas of color that was at odds with the illusion of space. Isaacson argues that this conflict between illusion and surface pattern was a major reason for Monet's decision to abandon the work and notes that in Women in the Garden "the conflict was resolved in favor of the surface" (Monet 83).
The rejection of illusionistic space was one of the final steps in the forging of the new, utterly modern, approach to painting. The link between the Déjeuner and the Women can be seen not only in the resolution of the problem of surface versus illusionistic space, but in the attention to fashionable detail (the figures in both paintings reflect Monet's interest in fashion plates), the fact that three of the dresses in the earlier painting reappear in the second, and the fact that Camille Doncieux was the model ...