This dazzling collection of one hundred works by the masters of nineteenth-century French painting tells the story of the beloved Impressionist movement, focusing on the tumultuous period of the 1860s and 1870s and the emergence of the New Painting out of the Paris Salon. Lavish reproductions of masterpieces of French painting from the monumental canvases of Bouguereau to the landscapes and peasant scenes of Millet and Courbet set the stage for a rich visual narrative that recounts the incubation and evolution of the Impressionist movement. The range of subject matter and techniques reflects the styiistic diversity of the artists who were part of this revolution.