Impressionism, the revolutionary movement born in France in the 1860s and 1870s, was one of the most important breakthroughs in the history of painting. In her lively survey, Phoebe Pool relates the individual Impressionists--Renoir, Monet and Pissarro among them--to their predecessors and their heirs. She shows how they were influenced by artists like Delacroix, Courbet and the painters of the Barbizon school, and how Impressionism engendered the paintings of Cezanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh.--From publisher description.