At the beginning of the 20th century, Ambroise Vollard was one of the leading advocates for modern art. He became Pierre-Auguste Renoir's main art dealer after 1900. In this flattering portrait, Renoir depicts the shrewd businessman as a thoughtful connoisseur. Vollard is represented examining the statuette of a kneeling female nude by the contemporary sculptor Aristide Maillol. Such depictions of learned collectors belong to a long tradition.

Claude Monet painted this view of the river Seine and the town of Argenteuil from his studio boat, moored on a quiet side channel. The real subjects of this work are the flamboyant autumn colours. The orange leaves contrast with the blue water, rendered in thick parallel lines. Monet added texture to the trees by scratching the paint with the handle of his brush. Monet lived in Argenteuil, a suburb of Paris, from 1871 to 1878. It was an affordable alternative to the capital, easily accessible by the new railroads.

In the 1880s, Paul Gauguin made several extended trips to Brittany in western France, attracted by the region's remoteness and distinctive culture. This haymaking scene, captured during his third stay, is typical of the radically simplified approach he took to painting at this time. Forms are rendered as flat patches of vibrant colour, while three-dimensional relationships and perspective are deliberately ignored. Gauguin reduces the peasant women raking hay to the basic shapes of their black-and-white regional dress, presenting their actions as a timeless ritual.

Vincent van Gogh captured this view of an open plain outside Arles in early spring 1889. He wrote to his brother that the blossoms and the distant snow-capped mountain reminded him of the cherry trees and Mount Fuji in the Japanese prints he collected and greatly admired. Van Gogh had moved to the south of France a year earlier, hoping that the Provençal light and landscape would inspire his art.

The scene is rendered with a great variety of brushstrokes, from thick dots of paint for the blossoms to long streaks for the mountains.

This famous self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh expresses his artistic power and personal struggles.

Van Gogh painted it in January 1889, a week after leaving hospital. He had received treatment there after cutting off most of his left ear (shown here as the bandaged right ear because he painted himself in a mirror). This self-mutilation was a desperate act committed a few weeks earlier, following a heated argument with his fellow painter Paul Gauguin.

Van Gogh's fur cap secures his thick bandage and wards off the winter cold. Created in harsh conditions, this self-portrait demonstrates Van Gogh's determination to continue painting, reinforced by the objects behind him: a canvas on an easel and a Japanese print, an important source of inspiration. Above all, it is Van Gogh's brushwork and powerful handling of colour that declare his renewed ambition as a painter.

In this portrait, Paul Cézanne seems to have carefully considered every brushstroke in order to convey the sitter's features and character. The man, a farmworker from the artist's family estate, is portrayed as a stoical figure, his weathered face suggesting a working life spent outdoors. Cézanne made a number of paintings of rural workers at this time. He wrote: 'I love above all the appearance of people who have grown old without breaking with old customs.’

Paul Cézanne spent several years drawing and painting farmworkers from the rural estate where he lived near Aix-en-Provence, in the south of France. This is one of five paintings depicting some of these men playing cards. The figure on the right is a gardener called Paulin Paulet. The other player remains unidentified; Cézanne also made a portrait of him, on display nearby. Cézanne's figures are elongated, somewhat out of proportion, and his brushwork is lively and varied. However, the overall feeling in the painting is one of stillness and concentration, with the men completely absorbed in their game. Before Cézanne, artists and illustrators often represented card playing as a rowdy activity in taverns with wine and beer flowing. This painting offers a different vision: Cézanne's labourers are monumental and dignified, like timeworn statues.

This celebrated work is Édouard Manet's last major painting, completed a year before he died.

At one of the bars in the Folies-Bergère - a popular Parisian music hall - wine, champagne and British Bass beer with its red triangle logo await customers. A fashionable crowd mingles on the balcony. The legs and green boots of a trapeze artist in the upper left hint at the exciting musical and circus acts entertaining the audience. This animated background is in fact a reflection in the large gold-framed mirror, which projects it into the viewer's own space.

Manet made sketches on-site but painted this work entirely in his studio, where a barmaid named Suzon came to pose. She is the painting's still centre. Her enigmatic expression is unsettling, especially as she appears to be interacting with a male customer. Ignoring normal perspective, Manet shifted their reflection to the right. The bottles on the left are similarly misaligned in the mirror. This play of reflections emphasises the disorientating atmosphere of the Folies-Bergère. In this work, Manet created a complex and absorbing composition that is considered one of the iconic paintings of modern life.