"Matisse's works collectively give very little sense of a life long lived. ...Matisse's works give a vivid sense of a life lived as an artist, but not nearly the sense that Picasso gives of a life lived as a man. ...Matisse gives almost no sense of the political or economic history of the twentieth century, or of the demonic energies it unleashed... no sense that an artist might feel to take revenge upon the world. There is no equivalent of Picasso's Guernica... or to the death-haunted still lifes or harrowing political allegories, such as '. Nonetheless, Matisse's painting does provide a profound engagement with the spiritual uncertainties of the century, and a very personal response... in his inspired balance between observation, analysis, and the pure poetry of painting."