This study describes the history of Impressionism, and of Neo- and Post-Impressionism, in France; it also affords an overview of related artistic developments elsewhere in Europe and in North America.
Volume I deals with France. The book aims not only to deal with the illustrious names - Monet, Renoir, Manet, Pissarro, Sisley, Degas, Cezanne, Gauguin, van Gogh, Seurat, Signac - but also to present little-known artists who were important for Impressionism, among them Gustave Caillebotte, a significant painter whose work was not `discovered` till a century after his death. The monograph includes 17 of his paintings. Others included are Bracque-mond, Cross, Forain, Gonzales, Guillaumin, Lebourg, Lepine, Luce, Morisot, Raffaelli and Vignon.
Volume II deals with painting elsewhere in Europe and in North America that was inspired by French Impressionism or evolved parallel to it. Though this art may not always be strictly Impressionist, it nonetheless owed a debt to the French artists even when their style was translated into a different national artistic idiom. Volume II also features a reference section including brief biographies, bibliographies and photographs of 236 artists, as well as numerous entries on other movements, critics, publications and locations.
