The Thinker

"The Thinker" (French: "Le Penseur") is one of Auguste Rodin's famous bronze sculptures. It depicts a man in sober meditation battling with a powerful internal struggle. It's sometimes used to represent philosophy.

Sculpture

Originally named "The Poet", the piece was part of a commission by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, to create a monumental portal based on The Divine Comedy of Dante. Each of the statues in the piece represented one of the main characters in the epic poem. "The Thinker" was originally meant to depict Dante in front of the Gates of Hell, pondering his great poem. The sculpture is naked, as Rodin wanted a heroic figure in the tradition of Michelangelo, to represent intellect as well as poetry.

Rodin made a first small plaster version around 1880.

The first large-scale bronze cast was finished in 1902, but was not presented to the public until 1904. It became the property of the city of Paris, thanks to a subscription organised by Rodin admirers, and was put in front of the Panthéon in 1906. In 1922, however, it was moved to the Hôtel Biron, transformed into a Rodin Museum.

More than any other Rodin sculpture, The Thinker moved into the popular imagination, as an immediately recognizable icon of intellectual activity; consequently it has been subject to endless satirical use.

The original cast is currently on tour in Hartford, Connecticut at the Wadsworth Athenaeum, Mar/Apr 2006.

Further casts

Over twenty casts of the sculpture are in museums around the world. Some of these copies are enlarged versions of the original work as well as sculptures of different scales.

Monumental casts

Cleveland Museum of Art
Detroit Institute of Arts
Laeken cemetery, near Brussels, Belgium
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri
Kyoto National Museum

External links

The Thinker project, Munich. Discussion of the history of the many casts of this artwork.

Sculptures

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Sculpture

Further casts

Monumental casts

See also

External links