Obsessed with the human body, Michelangelo and Rodin both saw it as the outer boundary of an inner life, muscles and bones the lineaments of desire, suffering, and something approaching transcendence. In 1876, Rodin traveled to Italy to study his predecessor, encountering Michelangelo’s sculptures in situ for the first time and absorbing their scale, tension, and anatomical force. The dialogue was always implicit. Now the Louvre has made it explicit, bringing the two artists together for the first time. —Elena Clavarino