The Thinker (Enlarged)
Auguste Rodin (1840 to 1917) · 1881 to 1882 (model), enlarged 1902 to 1903, cast 1926
Everyone knows the pose, but it is worth standing in front of the real thing. A naked man sits on a rock, his right elbow planted on his left knee, his chin pressed against the back of his hand, his toes gripping the stone. He is not relaxed. Every muscle is tense, from the knotted shoulders to the clenched feet, and the effort of thought seems to run through his entire body. Rodin first modelled the figure in 1880 as the crowning element of The Gates of Hell, which you can see a few steps away, where he represents Dante contemplating the circles of hell.
The original figure was about seventy centimetres high. In 1902 and 1903 Rodin had it enlarged to the size you see here, more than one hundred and eighty centimetres, using a mechanical pointing process, and at this scale the rough modelling becomes monumental. Walk around him. From the side the composition is a tight pyramid; from the back the spine and shoulder blades look like a landscape. Notice how the surface catches light on the ridges and holds shadow in the hollows, and how the bronze has weathered to a deep green in the Tokyo air.
The enlarged Thinker became Rodin's most famous work and was placed in front of the Pantheon in Paris in 1906 before moving to the Musee Rodin. Casts now sit in cities around the world, and this one, made in 1926 and bought by Kojiro Matsukata, has been in the forecourt since the museum opened in 1959. It was recently returned to its original position after the forecourt was restored. If you come at night, when the museum is closed, he is still here, lit from below, thinking.
Did You Know? Rodin originally called the figure The Poet, and the title The Thinker was given by foundry workers who thought he looked like Michelangelo's statue of Lorenzo de Medici.
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