Exhibition at the Musée du Louvre, Le Corps et l'Âme - reopening

With the exhibition Le Corps et l'Âme (Body and Soul), the Musée du Louvre sets out to present an important aspect of the Italian Renaissance: the quasi-scientific quest for realism. For 4 months, from October 22, 2020 to January 18, 2021, the Paris museum will be presenting a fine collection of sculptures from the Quattrocento and early Cinquecento periods. This retrospective follows on from an exhibition presented at the Louvre between 2013 and 2014, entitled Le Printemps de la Renaissance. The exhibition reopened on May 19 and has been extended until June 21, 2021.

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During this period, sculptors set out to represent man realistically, from his physical features to his intimate feelings. This research led Donatello, Lombardo and then Michelangelo to study"fury and grace", one of the three themes of this retrospective, but also all the features that could"move and convince" viewers, the second theme of the exhibition. In the second half of the Quattrocento and the beginning of the Cinquecento, at the height of the Renaissance, Michelangelo's work was at the heart of the representation of feelings.

A final theme evoked here,"From Dionysus to Apollo", highlights"the inexhaustible reflection on classical antiquity expressed in sculpture, developing the search for a new harmony that transcends the naturalism of extreme gestures and feelings". To further explore these works, the Musée du Louvre presents alongside these sculptures the great paintings and sketches of the period, most of which come from the Castello Sforzesco museum in Milan. Let's go to Renaissance Italy, folks?