Impressionism: Revenge of the Nice

Art critic Matthew Collings presents a reassessment of Impressionism, which was loved by the 19th-century public but loathed by many critics. He charts the origins of the movement, beginning with Courbet's alternative Paris exhibition of 1855, and examines how such artists as Manet, Cezanne and Monet used colour and complex patterning in an attempt to portray ordinary life in a revolutionary new way