THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS.- The Gemeentemuseum presents "The time of Degas," on view through July 23, 2002. Thanks to a highly exceptional loan from the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, this exhibition includes 40 masterpieces of Impressionism and history painting. Renoir's The Swing, pictures of Breton peasants painted by Gauguin, and Monet's Women in the Garden (the first picture he painted wholly outdoors) are just a few of the famous canvases on show. The display revolves around Edgar Degas, the odd-man-out of the Impressionist movement. The breadth of his taste is demonstrated by his appreciation both of the Classicism of Ingres and of the free handling of paint and use of colour in Delacroix's work. His interest extended not only to the progressive contemporaries with whom he organised the first Impressionist exhibition, but also to the history painters with whom he had shared unforgettable days in Rome. Fourteen of Degas' own paintings are on show, including his famous portrait of the Bellelli family. However, the exhibition also reflects the diversity of the collection he assembled towards the end of his life and - by including photographs (some taken by Degas himself) - offers a picture of life in late19th-century Paris.