Spanning the period from romanticism to neo-impressionism, this book reveals the extraordinary richness, diversity, and inventiveness that fueled a remarkably creative period of French drawing--called "the paper century" in the opening essay. Brilliant drawings, watercolors, and pastels by Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Paul Cezanne, Paul Gauguin, and Georges Seurat as well as by many of their peers allow for a close inspection of such key nineteenth-century artistic movements as romanticism, realism, impressionism, the art of the Nabis and symbolists, and neo-impressionism.