 by Hemakumar Nanayakkara
 The Thinker is one of the most famous sculptures of the world which
is made of bronze and marble by the well known French sculptor Auguste
Rodin. The original work is currently displayed at the Rodin Museum in
Paris. Today well over twenty replicas of this marvelous work are
displayed in different museums around the world.
The Thinker was modeled in 1880 as a part of a commission by the
Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris. This museum was never built; the
commission for the doors was begun yet never completed.
Rodin was inspired by Dante's epic poem Divine Comedy and as a result
of it he called his large sculptural programme as The Gates of Hell.
Each of the statues of this monumental door represented one of the main
charachters in Dante's epic poem. The Thinker was earlier named as The
Poet as it was meant to be the portrait of the great writer Dante
himself.
The Thinker portrays a man in sober meditation, battling with a
powerful internal struggle. With his head resting over the right hand,
The Thinker sits in intense contemplation, twists his upper body to rest
the right elbow on his left thigh.
Rodin has once said, his Thinker thinks not only with his brain, with
his knitted eyebrows; with his distended nostrils and compressed lips;
but with every muscle of his arms, back and legs; also with his clenched
fist and toes. |
