Inspired by the Barbizon Realism School of painters such as Corot, Rousseau, Millet and Daubigny, this new generation featured names such as Courbet, Pissarro, Jongkind, Renoir, Bazille, Cézanne, Caillebotte, Berthe Morisot and Claude Monet, their leader. The documentary explains the public's and art critics' mistrust in relation to this "revolutionary" struggle that questioned ways of seeing forms and light. A struggle that finally gained recognition thirty years later, with the support of art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel when major works were displayed in the French National Museums. From period documents this rich and well-documented film traces the path of the popular movement that lay at the origins of modern art.