An extended and highly readable introduction covers the background to the movement, its heroic years, its followers and an account of the masters in their later years.

Full-page colour reproductions of over 100 paintings are faced by informative and intriguing descriptions: short biographies of thirty of the artists and a bibliography make this a highly useful reference work as well as a pleasure to browse.

Artists featured are: Bazille * Bonnard * Boudin * Cassatt * Cezanne * Constable * Corot * Courbet * Daubigny * Degas * Fantin-Latour * Gauguin * Jongkind * Manet * Millet * Monet * Morisot * Pissarro * Renoir * Rousseau * Sargent * Seurat * Sickert * Signac * Sisley * Steer * Toulouse-Lautrec * Van Gogh * Vuillard * Whistler