In/visible Bodies: Baroque Sculpture and Modern Painting

Artists have always had an interest in the body, but their representations of the human form have changed dramatically over the last 250 years. In the 1600s and 1700s, sculptors Giovanni Battista Foggini and François Lespingola approached the body with extreme precision: in their renderings of mythological figures, muscles and tendons appear ready to burst through the bronze surfaces. The Francis Bacon painting on view shows how many 20th-century artists shifted away from anatomical exactness. His work, whose subject is ambiguous, represents the body in a more abstract and provocative way. It was once conventional for artists to present lifelike depictions of external features; many now forgo accuracy in order to explore the intangible emotions that exist below the surface.

Organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario.

This exhibition is included with general admission.