What do Barnes patrons think? The outtakes

Matt Hanczaryk, 39, a South Philly self-described recovering Catholic and indiscriminate existentialist, says: "I was walking around the galleries like I was in a beautiful funeral, then I saw her and it woke me from that reverie."

He speaks of Negro Figure, by Luigi Settanni (around 1939; Room 19). "I saw this one — it snapped!" Hanczaryk says. "There's movement. This feels active. Technically, it's kind of disproportionate — it's not the greatest resemblance of reality. Her arms look like she's elastic, which lends to the movement, right? Also, her shirt is awesome. She's vibrant, she's moving, she looks like she's in the middle of something that's giving her pleasure. Yeah! It's like a selfie before there were selfies."

Carol Allen, a psychotherapist from Gladwyne, loves a quiet, obscure Rousseau titled View of Montsouris Park (1908-1910, the Kioski Henri Rousseau, Room 19). "I hardly understand why it moves me so much," she says. "There are so many more impressive things here. But, it is the stillness. The nature is overwhelming, but even that is still. There's this whole perspective thing — all of the Rousseaus do that, you know? The whole scene puts the people in perspective — they're so tiny. But that's how the universe is — we are very tiny. It's overwhelmingly green. There's even a greenish cast to the factory. I usually respond so strongly to composition. I follow the lines in a painting, and in this one there is hardly any movement ... and that grabs me. There's something about the stillness that just moves me."

Leave it to a lawyer. Jeff Thomsen of Broomall, a lawyer, refused to select a single favorite. He negotiated for an entire room, Room 15.

"Barnes put this room together with a lot of thought," said the Broomall barrister-cum-painter. "You have east and west side by side — these charming Chinese fans above these European landscape paintings. The American folk-art component, that was very important to Barnes. You have these Jacques Lipchitz sculptures, which harken to African art. And I love the Dutch chest. Look at that! Gorgeous! In addition, you have a lot of people just doing their thing, French painters, Mexican, Navajo — they are wonderful. And in a very quiet way you can just sit here and contemplate it all without the onrush of the people looking at the great masterpieces that you find in the main gallery and peppered around the museum. I think this room has everything that Barnes wanted people to contemplate: the relationships between light, color, line and the great vastness of art history."

Eight years ago, Lawson Glenn, of Atlanta, visited the Barnes and fell in love — specifically with Reclining Nude with Blue Eyes by Henri Matisse (1936, Room 10).

"I saw her at a distance, in an obscure location — a corner above a door," Glenn said. "I walked into this room and I looked and I kind of, 'Wow!' It was one of those things where you see a piece of art and you, you fall back! It hits you. Like, it hits you. I think the black lines make her pop. I like the simplicity, but with great colors — the striking red and green, the white pattern of the bed she's lying on. The blue eyes, obviously. Those eyes are something else. It's a little painting that packs a punch." On this recent trip to Philly, Lawson, 56, who manages relations between tech companies, made his second visit to the Barnes. "I went to the gift shop and saw they picked 'my' Matisse for the cover of the catalogue book, Masterworks. It blew me away."