Art critic James Rubin invites the reader to immerse himself in the world of impressionism not through the chronology of events and the work of individual artists, but to trace how this or that picture fits into the context of its time, how artists influenced each other and how they were influenced by the era. This approach allows the author to argue that his book is not just a set of facts about artists, but an encyclopedia of the era, which the impressionists themselves sought to create.