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Auguste Rodin's The Thinker was first called The Poet. It began as a small figure, thought to be Dante, sitting above Rodin's great sculpted doorway The Gates of Hell and pondering his poem. Rodin enlarged it in 1902, and it became one of the best-known sculptures in the world.

Sculpture (Auguste Rodin)

Art

The story behind the card

Rodin was commissioned in 1880 to make a monumental doorway for a planned museum of decorative arts in Paris, and he filled it with figures from Dante's Divine Comedy, the medieval Italian poem whose first part is a journey through Hell. The seated man at the top was meant to be the poet looking down on his own creation. Rodin later showed the figure on its own, enlarged to about 1.8 metres. The first full-size bronze, paid for by public subscription, stood in front of the Panthéon in Paris from 1906 until it moved to the Musée Rodin in 1922. About 27 other full-size casts are known around the world.

Türkçe oku
Auguste Rodin'in Düşünen Adam'ının ilk adı Şair'di. Cehennemin Kapıları adlı büyük kapı heykelinin tepesinde oturup şiirini düşünen bu küçük figürün Dante olduğu düşünülür. Rodin onu 1902'de büyüttü; heykel zamanla dünyanın en tanınmış eserlerinden biri oldu.

Rodin 1880'de, Paris'te kurulması planlanan bir dekoratif sanatlar müzesinin anıtsal kapısını yapmakla görevlendirildi. Kapıyı, Dante'nin ilk bölümü cehennemde geçen orta çağ şiiri İlahi Komedya'dan figürlerle doldurdu. En tepede oturan adam, kendi eserine yukarıdan bakan şairin ta kendisi olacaktı. Rodin figürü sonradan tek başına sergiledi ve yaklaşık 1,8 metreye büyüttü. Halktan toplanan bağışlarla dökülen ilk büyük bronz, 1906'dan 1922'de Musée Rodin'e taşınana kadar Paris'teki Panthéon'un önünde durdu. Bugün dünyada bunun dışında 27 kadar tam boy döküm bilinir.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: The Thinker
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