Already in the first year of working on 'The
Gates of Hell', Rodin modeled the central figure
of this great composition:
'The Thinker'. As
an independent work it became perhaps the best-known sculpture of all
time.
Seated on the tympanon of 'The Gates of Hell', 'The
Thinker'
watches the whole scene of the Inferno, brooding in contemplation. His athletic body is
twisted in tension from his head down to his curled toes, suggesting a tough intellectual
struggle. While the right muscular arm supports the pensive head, the left hand
is open, as if ready grasp the reality of his vision and to act.
Already
in 1885, Mirbeau noted that both the title and the subject of 'The Thinker'
reminded of Michelangelo's 'Il Penserioso' on the tomb of
Guiliano di Medici.
[Octave Mirbeau, 'Auguste Rodin', in La France,
Paris, 18 Febr. 1885
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Originally, 'The Thinker' - exhibited in Copenhagen in
1888 as 'The Poet'
- was
to represent Dante Alighieri, the author of the Divina Commedia,
who - according to a popular anecdote - also used to sit and think on a
rock in Florence called Sasso di Dante, watching the Baptistry.
As a portrait of Dante, 'The Thinker' symbolized the intellectual power that created the dramatic world
depicted in 'The Gates':
"In front of this Porte [Rodin explained to a
journalist at the turn of the century], but on a rock, Dante was to be
seated in profound meditation, conceiving the plan of his poem. Behind him,
there was Ugolino, Francesca, Paolo, all the characters of the Divine
Comedy. But something came of this idea. Gaunt, ascetic in his straight
robe, my Dante, seperated from the ensemble, would have had no meaning.
Still inspired by my original idea, I conceived of another Thinker, a
naked man crouched on a rock against which his feet are contracted. Fist
pressed against his teeth, he sits lost in contemplation. His fertile
thoughts slowly unfalled in his imagination. He is not a dreamer; he is a
creator."
[Marcelle Adam, Le Penseur, in: Gil Blas, Paris, 7 July
1904, quoted by Grunfeld, chapter 8, p. 191]
Interpreted this way, 'The Thinker' was detached from his
personal connection with Dante and now is seen to represent the power of thought and
mental creativity more generally. 'The Thinker' not only confirms Dante´s
high reputation as the embodiment of Plato's ideal of the
artist-philosopher: on a more abstract level, Rodin's work associates the creative qualities of artistic
genius with the ability to understand and judge society from a higher
standpoint. Because of his central place high above
the turmoil of the sinners, Elsen even draws a parallel to the figure of
Christ in the Judgement Seat.Another identification of the artist with Christ can be
found in 'Christ and Mary Magdalene'; in
'The
Hand of God', finally, the creative power of the Deity is directly
associated with that of the sculptor.
The elevated position of 'The Thinker' also caused Rodin to enlarge the
shoulders and arms, so that the proportions seem balanced
when looking up to the figure from the ground. Later, when 'The Thinker'
was enlarged and exhibited as a separate work, its lower placement led to an
irritating impression of top-heaviness.
Still during Rodin's life-time, several
critics speculated on the question, what 'The Thinker' was actually
thinking about. With the growing popularity of the socialist movement, 'The
Thinker' was sometimes interpreted as a working class hero, rising from
the fetters of the material world to the heights of class consciousness:
Democracy has had its heroes and
its statues. But these heroes were often no more than bourgeois. (...)
The Thinker of Mr Rodin is, on the contrary, the anonymous unknown
worker, the first to come from among the proletariat, whose native
homeliness the artist has exaggerated, again according to the exigencies
and manner of his art (...)
The proletariat will be flattered ... to see itself endowed with thought -
the proletariat that is so often accused of having only blindness and
instincts.
'Le Penseur' de Rodin, L´Univers et le Monde, quoted by Albert Elsen,
in: Rodin´s Thinker and the Dilemmas of Modern Public Sculpture, Yale
University Press, p. 129
Morphologically
spoken, Rodin´s 'Thinker' is the successor of the torso of the
'Seated Ugolino', which Rodin created during his years in Belgium.
Around 1876, Rodin created a further study of a seated man, which can be
seen as a another predecessor to 'The Thinker' (plaster, Nelson-Atkins Museum).
Finally, the giants at the base of the 'Vase
of the Titans' deal
with the same complex task of endowing seated heroes with an expression of
activity and strength. In 1901, Rodin recurred to 'The Thinker' while
creating 'The American Athlete'.
The first exhibited version of 'The Thinker' – 1888 in Copenhagen – in plaster was 71.5 cm high.
Only in 1902, when Rodin began to have some of his most popular sculptures
enlarged by his helper Henri LeBossé, a monumental version of 'The
Thinker'
was created as well, ca. 1.84 m high. The enlargement was completed by the end
of 1903 and shown in the Spring Salon in Paris 1904. In the Revue
blue of 17 Dec. 1904, Gustave Geffroy commented:"If he were to stand up and walk, the ground under his feet would
tremor and scores of soldiers would part for him."
The
first colossal bronze cast was produced by the young, ambitious founder Hébrard,
who promised Rodin to deliver a cast made after the prestigeous lost wax
method, for the price of a sand cast. This first cast was shipped to the Louisiana
World Exhibition and shown to the public, till Rodin began to doubt
the quality of the patina and sent a plaster cast to Mississippi to
replace the metal sculpture, which was eventually bought by Mr Walker.
In Paris, Gabriel Mourey, publisher of the New magazine Les
Arts de la Vie, took the initiative to organize a public subscription
with the aim to present a monumental bronze cast "to the people of Paris",
to be placed in front of the Panthéon. As a maquette, a bronze
coloured plaster was installed there; on 16 January 1905, this provisory
sculpture was destroyed by a fanatic, called Poitron, who claimed the
thinking poet was mocking at him.
In April 1906, the final bronze version was installed
and remained in front of the Panthéon for 16 years. In 1922, the statue with its pedestal was transported
to the garden of the recently opened
Musée Rodin, allegedly because it would be an obstacle during
public ceremonies.
By now, there are over 20 examples of the colossal
bronze cast, placed in cities all over the world. One of the casts,
manufactured by the Alexis Rudier Foundry, is placed next to the tomb of
Rodin and his wife Rose Beuret in Meudon.
For a detailed overview of all monumental plaster and
bronze examples, see www.penseur.org.
BIBLIOGRAPHY (supplied by The
National Gallery of Art, Washington):
Bartlett, Truman H. "Auguste Rodin, Sculptor." American Architect and Building News (19 January-15 June 1889): 224.
Geffroy, Gustave. "Le Statuaire Rodin." Les Lettres et les Arts (1 September 1889). In Vilain, Jacques. Claude Monet-Auguste Rodin: Centennaire de l'exposition de 1889. Exh. cat., Musée Rodin, Paris, 1989: 62.
Adam, Marcel. "Le Penseur." Gil Blas (7 July 1904).
Mourey, Gabriel. "Le Penseur de Rodin offert par souscription publique au peuple de Paris." Les Arts et la vie (May 1904): 267-270.
Grappe, Georges. Catalogue du Musée Rodin. Paris, 1927: 61.
Grappe, Georges. Catalogue du Musée Rodin. 5th ed. Paris, 1944: 24-25.
Gantner, Joseph. Rodin und Michelangelo. Vienna, 1953: 27-28.
Alhadeff, Albert. "Michelangelo and the Early Rodin." The Art Bulletin 4 (December 1963): 363-367.
Elsen, Albert E. Rodin. New York, 1963: 52-54.
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 168
Spear, Athena Tacha. Rodin Sculpture in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, 1967: 52-53, 96-97.
European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1968: 148, repro.
Tancock, John. The Sculpture of Auguste Rodin. Philadelphia, 1976: 111-121.
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The Romantics to Rodin: French Nineteenth-Century Sculpture from North American Collections.
Peter Fusco and H.W. Janson, eds. Exh. cat. LACMA; Minn. Inst. of Art; Indianapolis Mus. of Art; Mus. of Fine Arts, Boston. New York, 1980: 334-335.
Elsen, Albert E. In Rodin's Studio. Ithaca, New York, 1980: figs. 19-22, pls. 23, 24, 165-166.
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Schmoll, J.A. Rodin--Studien: Persönlichkeit--Werke--Wirkung--Bibliographie. Munich, 1983: 54-58, 66-67, 192-193, 278-282.
Elsen, Albert E. Rodin's Thinker and the Dilemmas of Modern Public Sculpture. New Haven and London, 1985.
Elsen, Albert E. The Gates of Hell by Auguste Rodin. Stanford, California, 1985: 56-57.
Jamison, Rosalyn Frankel. Rodin and Hugo: The Nineteenth-Century Theme of Genius in "The Gates" and Related Works. Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1986: 69-122.
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Vilain, Jacques. Claude Monet-Auguste Rodin: Centennaire de l'exposition de 1889. Exh. cat. Musée Rodin, Paris, 1989: 174-176.
Butler, Ruth. Rodin. The Shape of Genius. New Haven and London, 1993: 423-435.
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Kausch, Michael. Auguste Rodin: Eros und Leidenschaft. Exh. cat. Harrach Palace, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, 1996: 166-168.
Porter, John R., and Yves Lacasse. Rodin à Quebec. Quebec, 1998: 78-83.
Butler, Ruth, and Suzanne Glover Lindsay, with Alison Luchs, Douglas Lewis, Cynthia J. Mills, and
Jeffrey Weidman. European Sculpture of the Nineteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2000: 321-326, color repro.
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