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 Czanne 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