The Real Thinker

The Thinker
Auguste Rodin, 1902
Bronze and Marble
Paris, Musée Rodin

I was first introduced to "The Thinker" pose some 20 over years ago, when I attended a motivation talk. The speaker struck a pose similar to The Thinker and said, "Don't just sit and think, act on your dreams!" That stuck on my head eversince, but being a mediocre person, I did not achieve my dreams and stuck in the Thinker pose eversince!!

So who is the real Thinker?

This is from Wikipedia:

"The Thinker (French: Le Penseur) is a bronze and marble sculpture by Auguste Rodin held in the Musée Rodin in Paris. It depicts a man in sober meditation battling with a powerful internal struggle. It is often used to represent philosophy."

The history goes like this:

"Originally named The Poet, the piece was part of a commission by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris to create a monumental portal to act as the door of the museum. Rodin based his theme on The Divine Comedy of Dante and entitled the portal The Gates of Hell. 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. (In the final sculpture, a miniature of the statue sits atop the gates, pondering the hellish fate of those beneath him.) The sculpture is nude, as Rodin wanted a heroic figure in the tradition of Michelangelo, to represent intellect as well as poetry."

You can read the rest in Wikipedia HERE.

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

The Thinker in front of Philosophy Hall at Columbia University

The Thinker in the rear of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, United States.

The Thinker in front of the Kyoto National Museum