This four-page undergraduate paper examines Auguste Rodin’s Balzac and Henri Matisse’s Reclining Nude. The author notes that in comparing and contrasting Balzac and Reclining Nude, it is evident that these great works of art challenge each other in important ways, but that they also compliment each other, for each of them is an expression of an immensely talented artist at the height of his skill. They respectively express masculine and feminine themes and reflect their creator’s reactions to contemporary movements in the art world.