Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Cezanne, Renoir, Degas, Renoir, Sisley, Berthe Moriost and Mary Cassatt were all branded as lunatics, but today this is a roll-call of great artists, whose paintings evoke a unique atmosphere of harmony: languid landscapes flooded with light, shop-workers dancing on their day off, bars and gas-lit streets, the sunlit beach at Trouville. We all know these dazzling pictures - but how well do we know the Impressionists as people?
