Was it happenstance, luck, or careful planning that brought two exhibitions linking French and Spanish masters to New York at just about the same time this winter? Whether it was by chance or design that “Matisse Picasso” at MOMA QNS was scheduled to coincide with “Manet/Velázquez: The French Taste for Spanish Painting” at the Metropolitan,[1] we must be grateful. Individually, each exhibition is, of course, completely self-sufficient and spectacular in its own way. But together, they become an intensive seminar in what could be called “the grand unified theory of art history”: a thought-provoking progression from the macrocosm of national and period style, at the Met, to the microcosm of the relationship between two remarkable artists, at MOMA, a journey from the broad and verifiable to the sharply focused but ultimately elusive and speculative. (Let’s ignore the va ...

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