Introduction: A tumultuous decade
Part I: Releasing control
The guiding lights: Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne
Primitivism: "The Wisdom of Savages"
Sex and sublimation: Exciting the whole machine
Journeys inward: The symbolist strand
Part II: Paris, capital of the modern art world
Paris and the rest of Europe
Descent into madness: The case of Edvard Munch
Altered states: Drugs and alcohol
Alienation from the public
Suicide, death, morbidity
Studio gruffness and the rewriting of history
Futurism: Beautiful ideas that kill
Pioneers of Modernism: Dealers and collectors of new art
Call the police: Academicism and conservative taste
Wriggle and chiffon: Fashionable portraitists
Railroads and Rembrandts: Dealers and collectors of old art
Heritage, museums, and national collections
Finale: August 1914- Art Suspended.