The Vital Art of D. H. Lawrence: Vision and Expression

In Women in Love, expressionist language is not just optical or kinetic but reveals the vital or conflicted life behind surfaces, expressing allotropic states of being to an extent never previously attempted.

The episode in which Mrs. Morel is thrust outdoors by her drunken spouse is the first of a series of intense moonlight scenes in Sons and Lovers, The Rainbow, and Women in Love. Perfume, glistening leaves, vibrating moonlight, distant sounds, and swooning sensations merge in a mélange of impressions detached from mental control.

Lawrence modulates his style from a decorative fidelity to nature, as prescribed by Ruskin, to an atmospheric diffuseness and rendering of color interactions characteristic of impressionism.