From April 15 to July 20, 2026, the Louvre will host in the Hall Napoléon the exhibition Michel-Ange/ Rodin. Corps Vivants, curated by Marc Bormand and Chloé Ariot, and organized by the Musée du Louvre with the collaboration of the Musée Rodin.
Choosing the human body as the focus of their artistic research, Michelangelo and Rodin both conceived of it as an organism traversed by a profound inner life. The two absolute protagonists of Western sculpture ideally enter into dialogue, resulting in a confrontation that highlights surprising affinities and radical differences. The works of Michelangelo and Rodin, animated by an extraordinary expressive intensity, embody both the physical power of the body and the complexity of the soul. The exhibition proposes an unprecedented encounter between the two masters, exploring the lines of continuity and fractures that run through their production, and interrogating the ways in which each reinvented the sculptural language of their time.
Divided into five thematic sections, the exhibition brings together a large and varied body of works, including marbles, bronzes, plaster casts, terracottas, casts and a significant selection of graphic works. This ensemble allows for an in-depth exploration of both the creative processes and the theoretical reflections that guide the work of the two artists.
At the center of the path emerge formal and conceptual issues converging toward the same goal: to make visible the inner energy of the body. The human figure is thus configured as a threshold between interiority and exteriority, as a sensitive envelope of the soul, living matter marked by time, movement and the artist’s gesture.
The exhibition also questions thelegacy of these gestures, asking how the rewriting of the ancient and the central role attributed to the body paved the way for the ruptures and experiments of the 20th century. Through a dense web of cross-references, borrowings and reinterpretations, the exhibition offers a sensitive reading of the myths of Michelangelo and Rodin, inviting us to consider sculpture not as a simple act of creating form, but as a true laboratory of artistic innovation.
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| Michelangelo and Rodin in dialogue and comparison in an exhibition at the Musée du Louvre |
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