With this exhibition, Body and Soul, the Louvre endeavors to present an important part of the Italian Renaissance: the almost scientific research for realism. For 4 months, from October 22, 2020 to January 18, 2021, the Parisian museum brings together a whole bunch of sculptures from the Quattrocento to the early Cinquecento. A retrospective that is the sequel to an exhibition displayed at the Louvre between 2013 and 2014 named Le Printemps de la Renaissance [The Spring of Renaissance]. The exhibition reopened on May 19 and is extended to June 21, 2021.

At that age, sculptors take it into their heads to present men in a realistic way, from their physical traits to their intimate feelings. These researches will lead Donatello, Lombardo then Michelangelo to study fury, grace as well as all the traits that could move and convince viewers. This work on representing feelings will be at the heart of the second half of the Quattrocento and the early Cinquecento, the apex of the Renaissance and leading to Michelangelo’s works.

One last topic is approached here, "From Dionysos to Apollo" highlighting "the endless thought about the classic Antiquity expressing through sculpture, developing the research for a new harmony going beyond the naturalism of gestures and extreme feelings". To go even further in these studies, the Louvre presents – next to theses sculptures – the major paintings and sketches from that time and most of them come from the Castello Sforzesco museum in Milano. Let's go and enjoy Renaissance Italy, friends, shall we?