The Thinker

The Thinker (Kyoto National Museum)

The Thinker (French: Le Penseur) is a famous bronze statue made by the sculptor Auguste Rodin, which portrays a man sitting and thinking with his arms bent on his knee and his chin on his hand. Though this statue is widely known as "The Thinker," Rodin first called it The Poet. It was part of a commission by the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris to create a huge gate based on the epic poem The Divine Comedy of Dante. Each of the statues in the piece represented one of the main characters in the poem. The Thinker was originally meant to depict Dante himself in front of the Gates of Hell, considering his great poem.

Over twenty casts of the sculpture exist; they are now in museums around the world. Some of those copies are enlarged versions of the original work, while others have somewhat different proportions.

The Thinker was finished in 1902

Other websites

• The Thinker project, Munich. Discussion of the history of the many casts of this artwork.