Art: Beauty & the Beast

One of the best arguments ever made for modern art opened this week in Philadelphia.

It was the lifework of Henri Matisse, or as much of it as the Philadelphia Museum of Art could lay hands on: almost 300 paintings, drawings, sculptures and prints. The work told more than all the books on the subject put together, and more than Matisse himself could possibly have explained. The aging master, who doesn't get around much any more, stayed far away, in his villa just outside the little Riviera hill town of Vence, making more pictures....