He explains, “When you look at things you tend to concentrate on one element, a boy or girl at the water’s edge, for example. It’s hard to bring into meaningful vision the entire scene at the one occasion. It’s all there, but its not defined and it’s that which is peripheral to the starting point”.The key to impressionism is keying in the peripheral to the starting point”. Although Hagan paints varied subjects, landscapes, seascapes, western, portraits and figurative he insists that his paintings here and there go beyond the obvious recognizable subject. This is especially the case now in 2002. He says “make a painting like the recognizable subject rather than executing a literal representation. It’s better to paint the effect of what is there…what is left in the back of the head! That’s impressionism, and that I hope is where I am” Robert is famous for his depiction of Australian Rural Landscape and its People.