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The little wandering art gallery "moving bodies"

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Walking, running, dancing... Artists have been trying to imitate these simple movements we do every day since Antiquity.It must have been a real challenge for them since photography and cinema did not exist yet!

This exhibition, dedicated to the reproductions of some of the dancers, runners and horse riders found in the Louvre collection, invites you to discover the artists’ talent in showing the moving body, from Ancient Greece to the 19th century.

 

WALKING, RUNNING

Walking: Carrying yourself along by moving one foot in front of the other, keeping your body steady to avert a fall!

Running: Moving along swiftly by leaning on one leg, then the other. Two of our simplest daily movements you might think…

Nevertheless, with the passing of time and mindscapes, artists have represented them in different ways.

Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Greek artists showed men and women pictured in an “apparent walk” attitude, regardless of whether it looked real. Ancient Greek sculptors broke away from those static and rigid figures.

Hinting at speed was a tough hurdle to overcome. Races featuring athletes or the “amorous race”—staging  often unhappy love stories between mortals and gods—were themes thanks to which artists were able to represent a moment within the movement as in a frozen frame from a movie.