Impressionists at First Hand

London: Thames & Hudson, Limited. Fine. 1987. Soft Cover. 8vo 0500202095 No ownership marks. Uncreased spine. 22 pages plus index. 195 illustrations with 17 in colour. The Impressionists -Monet, Manet, Cezanne, Degas, Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley and their associates - are probably the most popular of all artistic schools. It has not always been so; and their struggle to impose a new vision is one of the most absorbing in the whole history of art. With imagination and insight Bernard Denvir brings Impressionism into focus by showing it through the eyes of the artists themselves and their contemporaries, against the background of the time. Through the letters, critical reviews and reminiscences - whether explosive or appreciative, blinkered or perceptive - of the people who were there, the story comes alive. This was the age of Emile Zola, steam tricycles, emergent photography and modern ideas about perception. The Impressionists had new ways of painting, but they also had a new world to paint. .