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The Thinker - Definition and Overview |
| Related Words: Nestor, Solomon, Authority, Casuist, Cosmologist, Dialectician, Doctor, Egghead, Elder, Expert, Guru, Illuminate, Intellect, Intellectual, Literate, Logician, Mahatma |
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A copy of The Thinker in the courtyard of the Kyoto National Museum in Kyoto, Japan The Thinker (French Le Penseur) is one of Auguste Rodin's most famous bronze sculptures. It depicts a man in sober meditation battling with a powerful internal struggle.
The piece was originally named the "The Poet", and was part of a commission by the Museum of Decorative Arts in 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 be Dante in front of the Gates of Hell, pondering his great poem. The sculpture is naked as Rodin wanted a heroic figure à la Michelangelo to represent thinking as well as poetry.
As of today, over twenty casts of this sculpture have been created, which can be found in museums all over the world. Furthermore, these copies include various enlarged versions of the original work, as well as sculptures of different proportions.
External link
- The Thinker project (http://www.penseur.org), Munich. A very informative website that discusses the history of the many casts of this artwork.
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