Some years ago, I finally saw The Gates of Hell, by Rodin. Before seeing it, I’d never been aware that The Thinker was just a zoomed up item from a greater work. I’d been aware that The Thinker was considered a masterful statue, but never thought much of it. Seeing it in the context of the Gate, it’s meaning is immediately clear and evocative. As a zoomed up element, outside of that context…not so much (IMHO).
Anyways, it just occurred to me randomly today to point that out since there may be others who weren’t aware of the Gates of Hell.
(I’ll also mention that the large version of The Thinker looks pretty shabby, or at least the version I saw did. It looks like someone tried making it by taking half-melted balls of iron and squishing them against each other to get a rough semblance of a basic shape. The surface is all bumpy with the bumps looking like they’re sagging or dribbling. I’m not sure if that’s Rodin’s style and it’s meant to be that way or if he was just in a hurry trying to create several copies of the statue.)
I’ll also also note that the Gates of Hell are physically deep. The Thinker at the top sticks out probably a good 6 inches on a sort of diving board extension, and then the contents of the Gate are set into about a foot or two of space.
Huh. I feel the opposite to the OP, I like the standalone statue, but think it looks out of place on the larger Gates of Hell. I mean, how much thinking do people do in Hell that some dude sitting there pondering is given such a prominant place (yea, I know it supposed to be Dante, but that doesn’t make it look less incongrous) ? He should be replaced with some guy having a demon gnawing on his intestines, IMHO.
That said, I’ve seen The Thinker IRL but not the Gates, so maybe the latter looks better in 3D.
The Thinker is pretty separate from Hell. He’s not in it thinking, he’s outside. The Wikipedia suggests that he may be Dante thinking about the story of the Divine Comedy. To me, it seemed more like a character like Prometheus. All of the fire and heat and machinations in the world are giving him the impetus to think hard and advance the world.
We have a Thinker and Gates Of Hell at the Rodin museum her in Philly. While his work lacks fine detail and grace, I feel it has a certain vitality to it. Some of his statues seemed ready to walk off their bases.
I can’t get over how much his hand must hurt, bent over like that. It’s distracting. I think a more natural pose would be to have him resting his head on the top of his closed fist, instead of the back of his hand.
Apparently whatever he’s thinking is just so deep, man, he doesn’t notice how much his hand hurts.
Whoa, I never realized that thinking a lot will get you surrounded by hot naked babes. Maybe I’ll have to pay slightly greater attention to my surroundings next time I’m deep in thought.
