A celebration of the Impressionists artists, including Monet, Renoir and Pissarro, whose paintings are inextricably linked to the birth of modern art. Today, our passion for these artists remains, and their paintings are amongst the best-loved works in the history of art. By choosing to paint extraordinary pictures of modernity that shocked the bourgeois elite, the Impressionists challenged the academic ideals of the French Salons, rejected the past and embracing colour to portray a sense of joie de vivre. Their revolutionary use of colour, free brushstrokes and modern subject matter, painted en plain air gave rise to one of the most important and influential art movements of the nineteenth century. Featuring many of the most famous and important pieces by the groups' key figures, this beautifully illustrated reference book also includes a collection of less well-known but equally important works to show the diversity of this exceptional movement. AUTHOR: Michael Robinson is a freelance lecturer and writer on British art and design history. Originally an art dealer with his own provincial gallery in Sussex, he entered academic life by way of a career change, having gained a first class honours and Masters degree at Kingston University. He is currently working on his doctorate, a study of early modernist period British dealers. He continues to lecture on British and French art of the Modern period. 176 illustrations