Does a museum exhibition have to have a theme? Not necessarily: Sometimes a room full of great pictures more than suffices, particularly when its installation is sensible yet creative.

        Modern Masters: From Corot to Kandinsky, at the Taft Museum of Art through Oct. 28, is ostensibly about the history and development of modern art. What the viewer experiences strolling through the show, however, is simply the good taste of a single collector.

        The collector in question, Mexican entrepreneur Juan Antonio Perez Simon, has been amassing art since the early 1990s for his social service foundation, Juntos Actuando. This organization focuses on aiding workers and disadvantaged citizens, a theme that is echoed in many of the paintings in the collection.

        The exhibit consists of European paintings and drawings from the 19th and early 20th century and represents an eclectic group of styles, subjects and approaches to art. Almost all of the work is of excellent quality.

Groundbreaking works

       What is Modern Art?

        Some would define it as art that looks like nothing that came before. Experimentalists like Picasso and Cezanne broke a lot of rules as they made their reputations and eventually got a lot of credit for it.

        But, as this show illustrates, there were a lot of conservative, less-recognized artists who were making good work, too.

        Modern Masters turns out to be a showcase for these lesser-known names.

        For example, it is almost impossible to see the work of the Swede Anders Zorn in American museums, yet here he is represented with two fine paintings. The large oil portrait, “Mrs. Henry Clay Pierce,” is a particularly stunning example of Zorn's energetic, painterly style.

        Joaquin Sorrolla, a Spaniard who painted in a manner similar to Zorn's, is represented by several pieces. His near-abstract “Fishing Port in San Sebastien and Sad Inheritance (Study)” are exercises in pure visual fireworks, with thick applications of paint tamed just enough to suggest form.

Idealizing the worker

       As a reflection of the mission of the collection's parent foundation, Modern Masters contains a number of paintings on the theme of the worker. The French artists Eugene Boudin, Julien Dupre and Jean Francois Millet painted idealized versions of peasants in the countryside.

        Works such as Millet's “The Road Mender” were meant to lend dignity and humanity to farm workers who were historically depicted as objects of satire and ridicule.

        Modern Masters also has its share of sedate landscapes.

        Like the Taft's own collection, the exhibit is strong in the work of the early 19th-century French painter Camille Corot.

        Considered a forefather of the Impressionists, Corot specialized in atmospheric glazes and broken patches of color that evoked the landscape rather than describing it. “Three Cows at the Pond” is a classic example of his work.

        Similarly, Boudin evokes a sense of mood and light in his “Low Tide in Saint Vaast,” “The Hague” and “Dead River in Deauville.” These two artists aptly demonstrate the difficulty in defining Modernism, because they contain elements that are simultaneously classical and innovative.
       

Historical re-creations

        The stars of the show, however, are the narrative painters James Jaques Tissot and Lawrence Alma-Tadema, French and British artists who worked during the 1880s, about the time of the Impressionists.

        Nothing could be more foreign to the up-to-the-minute idea of Modernism than the kinds of historical subjects that these artists tackle. Alma-Tadema's “An Exedra” re-creates a slice of life from pre-Christian Rome. His lively, humorous characterizations give the scene an immediacy that makes it seem familiar even as it evokes a bygone age.

        Tissot's “Marguerite at Rempart” illustrates a scene from Goethe's novel Faust. His emotionally penetrating depiction of the doomed heroine and careful descriptions of scenery draw us into the story.

        The fact that these artists are able to create engaging worlds out of these old subjects reminds us that art doesn't need to be about contemporary life to be interesting.

        In Modern Masters even the splashiest of 20th century artists can't compete with these quiet achievements. The works of Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky and others are represented by small paintings of average quality.

        Although billed as a show of Modernism, the collection was obviously formed by a connoisseur who likes art of many types and periods.

        A stroll through the exhibition reminds us that we don't necessarily need categories to enjoy art.

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