"His [James Joyce] object, in rendering a single day, was to capture a sense of life in full flow. This might necessitate a severely reduced role for plot-lines and external events. He was, however, greatly influenced by some of the advances made by impressionist painters. Claude Monet had said that time was a far more important element than plot in any convincing painting. As a modern artist, he was less interested in narrative of the Victorian kind than in returning to the feel of a moment. 'One does not paint a landscape, a seascape, a figure,' said Monet. 'One paints an impression of an hour of the day.' Ulysses, with its successive episodes keyed to the various hours through a summer's day, seems the literary implementation of this programme."