  We review recent developments in the theoretical investigation of the nucleon
polarizabilities. We first report on the static polarizabilities as measured in
real Compton scattering, comparing and interpreting the results from various
theoretical approaches. In a second step, we extend the discussion to the
generalized polarizabilities which can be accessed in virtual Compton
scattering, showing how the information encoded in these quantities can provide
a spatial interpretation of the induced polarization densities in the nucleon.
