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At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, Klimt drew slender women far from the opulent curves of previous centuries. As for Schiele, he shows beyond the body of his emaciated nudes a suffering state of mind in a broken society.
The pieces on display range from the first drawings by Michelangelo to the works of 20th century artists and show the importance and then the decline of this vision of the body of the Italian master.
Today, the body continues to be in the midst of debates, criticisms in a multiplicity of more or less successful attempts to modify its appearance but retains all its weight, literally and figuratively, in its acceptance or rejection by a society that goes from idolatry to the deepest disgust.
Michelangelo Buonarroti
Studies for the Libyan Sibyl, c. 1510/11
Rötel
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1924, inv. no. 24.197.2
Photo: © bpk / The Metropolitan Museum of Art