Demonstrates the four periods of the painters life from the research period in which the artist was influenced by the realism of Gustave Courbet and by Japanese art. Second he discovered his own orginality in the Nocturnes and the Cremorne Gardens series. The third period is dominated by the full-length portraits which brought him fame, and toward the end of his life the artist began painting landscapes and portraits in the classical tradition, strongly influenced by Velasquez.