Date of conception : Dimensions : H. Materials : Bronze. Inventory number : S. Resources Iconography The Thinker zip, Spreckels purchased and later donated to the Legion of Honor. Auguste Rodin French, — The Thinker, ca. Height: 6ft.
Gift of Alma de Bretteville Spreckels Visit the Legion of Honor. Getting to the Legion of Honor. Current Exhibitions. Upcoming Exhibitions. Search the Collections. Each of the main figures included was originally designed to represent one of the main characters in hell in Dante's epic poem of , The Divine Comedy. Initially intended to represent Dante himself, The Thinker was originally positioned by Rodin at the top of the doorjamb, contemplating the scene below. In the nearly ten years that Rodin worked on the Gates of Hell , he changed the format of the images several times.
Often he would re-work one or more of the main sculptural groups, or remove them from the door's composition altogether. Although not frequently included in these re-workings, The Thinker was removed from the doors once, along with all of the other protruding sculptural elements, when the doors were displayed in Several of the sculptures designed for the Gates of Hell , especially The Thinker and The Kiss , became well known as sculptures independent of the original project.
The enlargement of the original inch version of the sculpture was not difficult thanks to the help of an enlarging mechanism called the colas machine and the assistance of Henri Lebosse. Using the process that Lebosse developed, Rodin's original model could be "traced" onto another block of clay, and in the process, enlarged or reduced.
Tradition of Outdoor, Public Placement Although created for the Gates of Hell , The Thinker took on an alternate significance and became a symbol of freedom and knowledge. After its first exhibition, a public petition was circulated to have the inch sculpture purchased and donated to the people of France.
After its purchase in , the initial enlarged version of Rodin's The Thinker was placed outside of the Pantheon in Paris, where it stayed until It was later removed from its original placement because it was said to create an obstacle to public events, and also because it had taken on socialist connotations.
It was subsequently transported to the Musee Rodin, in the former Hotel Biron. There the statue sits today on its original pedestal in the exterior gardens of the museum.
There is also another version of The Thinker located over the grave of Auguste and his wife Rose Rodin. Auguste Rodin placed it there upon the death of his wife, and when he passed away in , he was also buried below it. Because the original Gates of Hell were designed as outdoor sculpture, and Rodin's first enlargement was placed outdoors in front of the Pantheon, most of Rodin's subsequent enlargements have ended up outdoors as well. Unfortunately this leaves these works unprotected from both the elements and the public.
All told there are twenty-five castings of the enlarged version of Rodin's The Thinker. Of these, less than ten were cast and patinated during his lifetime. This cast was acquired in , just after the museum opened to the public. The twenty remaining castings of The Thinker were done posthumously. At least seven or eight of these were from the original series of enlargements that Rodin had begun before his death. The remainder were part of a recast edition sanctioned by Auguste Rodin and undertaken by the Musee Rodin in Rather curiously, there seems to be at least one unauthorized casting of this figure that is currently housed in Germany at the Kunsthalle Richard Kaselowsky-Haus, Bielifield.
At approximately a. The bomb itself had been placed on a pedestal that supported the enlargement and had the power of about three sticks of dynamite.
No one was injured in the subsequent blast, but the statue's base and lower legs were destroyed. The remaining sections of the cast were blown backward to form a "plume" at the base, and the entire statue was knocked to the ground. It was reported that this attack was undertaken by a radical political group, perhaps as a commentary on the continuing military action in Vietnam or the elitism of the American government.
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