Exhibition: "Corps à corps - combats et luttes dans le sport" at the Senlis Museum of Art and Archaeology

To celebrate the Games, the town of Senlis, which has been awarded the "Land of Games" label, and the Musée d'Art et d'Archéologie are getting into the Olympic spirit throughout 2024. The "Corps à corps" exhibition, produced in collaboration with the Francès Foundation and with loans from the Crépy-en-Valois and Saint-Omer museums, presents a selection of works from Antiquity to the present day that praise the beauty of athletic male bodies. This aesthetic ideal, associated with values of strength, courage and endurance, is exalted in heroic battle scenes. Men's physical prowess and virtues were also represented in images of sporting competitions such as wrestling and boxing. This heightened virility also highlights other political and social struggles.