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Opposite the landscapes are five works by Degas, including a bronze horse and a bronze ballet dancer — his signature subject — a couple of drawings, and an unusual and spectacular painting of his sister-in-law, "Portrait of Estelle Musson Degas." This monumental painting of his brother's pregnant wife arranging flowers was painted in proto-impressionist realism in 1872. That was the same year Degas lived in New Orleans, an often overlooked part of the Parisian artist's biography. If not the most important painting in Impressionist and Modern Masters, it is surely one of the most compelling.

On the opposite side of the Steiner is Rodin's famous "Age of Bronze," a life-sized statue of a male nude. Though this is not an original 1876 casting, it was cast during Rodin's lifetime.

The final chapter of the show deals with modernism, and there was a smoother transition from the impressionists to the modernists than from the Old Masters to the later artists — both in art history and in this show. As the modernist part gets under way, viewers pick up the story of what happened in the immediate wake of impressionism, with examples of the fauvist movement, such as the vibrant pieces by Maurice de Vlaminck and Andre Derain. It continues into Braque's post-impressionism before getting to the full-blown modernism of Picasso's cubism, exemplified by the 1913 collage "Table With Bottle and Violin." There are also several other Picassos, the most ambitious of which is "Woman in an Armchair," a monumental portrait done in 1960.

The modernist section includes quite a few interesting things, but some pieces, such as Kandinsky's "Sketch for Several Circles," from 1926, are unforgettable. Also in this category is the striking and forward-looking Miró, 1935's "Portrait of a Young Woman," which looks like it could have been done yesterday, and the early drip painting by Jackson Pollock, "Composition," from 1948, in casein on paper. It's a classic example of abstract expressionism.

Truth be told, Impressionist and Modern Masters, isn't made up of the world's most important paintings, but it does include pieces by the world's most important artists. That's why this blockbuster represents a completely solid offering that has a lot to teach viewers about the development of painting in Europe and the United States over the past several centuries. And the intelligent installation, which is based on a historic perspective, dividing the material into three distinct phases, underscores the sequential nature of the development of art as it turned toward modernism.