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What is "The Thinker" actually thinking about? - Noah Charney
What is "The Thinker" actually thinking about? - Noah Charney
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Subtitles (83)
0:06
A figure perches, hunched in reflection.
0:10
But this canonical sculpture isn't just contemplation incarnate.
0:14
French sculptor Auguste Rodin intended it to represent a specific person—
0:19
and fit into a much larger piece featuring the fiery pits of Hell—
0:24
a project that obsessed him during the last decades of his life.
0:28
So, who was “The Thinker” and what was he actually thinking?
0:35
Rodin's path to renown was rocky.
0:37
He grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Paris,
0:40
applied to the esteemed school of fine arts,
0:43
and was rejected three separate times.
0:46
After several years working as a craftsman,
0:49
he submitted his first sculpture to Paris’ Salon— and was denied.
0:54
It wasn't until 1877, when he was 35 and fresh off a visit to Italy,
1:00
dazzled by the Renaissance sculptures on display,
1:03
that Rodin completed his first major work.
1:06
However, critics accused him of casting the lifelike sculpture
1:10
directly from the model.
1:12
But he hadn’t, and other artists vouched for him.
1:16
As the controversy concluded, however, Rodin drastically shifted his style.
1:22
Rather than render academically realistic forms,
1:26
he began creating rougher, more expressive surfaces.
1:30
Advances in camera technology had recently made it possible
1:33
to capture perfect likeness,
1:35
but Rodin argued that artistic renderings, though less precise,
1:39
were more truthful.
1:41
Like artists helming the burgeoning movements of Cubism,
1:44
Abstraction, and Impressionism,
1:46
Rodin was poised to modernize sculpture, lending new life to classical forms.
1:53
And in 1880, he received his life-defining commission:
1:56
a monumental doorway for a new French museum
2:00
intended to echo the “Gates of Paradise” by Renaissance sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti.
2:06
Rodin proposed its antithesis: "The Gates of Hell,”
2:10
a swirling, infernal composition featuring over 200 tormented souls.
2:16
It was inspired by Dante Alighieri’s “Inferno,”
2:19
a 14th-century poetic journey through the nine circles of Hell
2:23
and its doomed inhabitants’ downfalls.
2:27
Rodin began “The Gates” in clay,
2:30
sculpting small, interlocking figures,
2:32
his studio filling with fragments to be rearranged, combined,
2:36
or enlarged as independent works.
2:39
Breaking with tradition, he left visible traces of the creative process.
2:45
However, the museum was never built.
2:48
And the project became a sprawling obsession of endless revision.
2:52
But it was one that would yield some of Rodin’s greatest sculptures—
2:56
individual elements from “The Gates” that were isolated, refined, and scaled up.
3:02
Like many artists, Rodin had a team of studio assistants
3:06
who were talented in their own right.
3:08
For “The Gates,” he favored an ancient technique,
3:11
the lost-wax method, to go from clay to bronze.
3:16
For each sculpture, his team made various molds,
3:19
beginning with plaster and moving into hollow wax replicas
3:22
they’d coat and heat,
3:23
melting away the wax, before pouring molten bronze in.
3:28
Finally, they’d break the outer shell to reveal the solid metal sculpture within.
3:33
Complex compositions were cast in sections and soldered together.
3:37
Then, Rodin’s team would finish the surface,
3:40
applying a chemical patina.
3:44
Within “The Gates of Hell,” forms described in Dante’s “Inferno”
3:48
writhed in sin-struck anguish:
3:51
lovers Paolo and Francesca grappling eternally in forbidden lust
3:57
and political traitor Count Ugolino cannibalizing his sons
4:00
in his final desperate moments.
4:03
Rodin also found infernal inspiration in other works,
4:07
like the carnal themes explored in a poetry collection by Charles Baudelaire.
4:13
But above all of this hellish chaos was to be a single seated figure—
4:19
not just any man,
4:20
but the author of “Inferno,”
4:22
Dante, himself, pondering the suffering below,
4:26
considering human nature’s great pitfalls, the weight bearing down on his fist.
4:32
Rodin originally called him “The Poet,” then “The Thinker.”
4:39
First cast on its own in 1888, “The Thinker” became a sensation.
4:44
Out of context,
4:45
the figure came to be seen less as Dante wrestling with sin and damnation,
4:50
and more of an everyman;
4:52
a universal symbol of the human mind’s ability to reflect, doubt, and create;
4:58
or even France itself, striving to balance its values.
5:03
In 1904, a life-sized “Thinker” was installed in public—
5:07
not overlooking Hell, but crowning a cultural monument.
5:12
And it soon became one of the world’s most famous sculptures.
5:16
But much as “The Thinker” remains eternally consumed by contemplation,
5:21
Rodin’s “Gates of Hell” remain unfinished.
5:25
Despite 37 years of work,
5:27
the first bronze cast of “The Gates” was completed nearly a decade after his death.
What is "The Thinker" actually thinking about? - Noah Charney - Video học tiếng Anh
