Le Penseur: French for “The Penseur”
Rodin. This was originally going to be Dante sitting in front of Rodin’s preceding piece, The Gates of Hell. It’s a huge detailed and emotional piece. Gnashing and chaotic… hell itself. Dante was to be contemplating his long epic poem, The Divine Comedy, outside the Gates. Rodin’s idea evolved. Dante became Le Penseur: the symbol for dream and blazing, visible-in-the-flesh, “refining fire”. I think the majestic nakedness of The Thinker validates him as The Dreamer. Perhaps an otherwise underappreciated characterization. Perhaps a connotation of weakness, widely assumed by the logical, empirical crowd. The Thinker fulfills the whole kit-n-kaboodle of what it is to dream. It is to create and enact within that which is truth, poetry and reality. Most of all, this is representing the potent potential of humanity and mortality. The gates of hell of it all, the humble majesty that becomes one emerging from that gate, over and over again like a revolving door throughout life. Expect it, prepare for it, greet it or bypass it when it comes. But you can count on your ability to connect with something within to then further connect with something in the universe, during and after your passage. Every time. The creative path Rodin took to build The Thinker is metaphorically the physical path we might be able to take in order to build The Thinker within us. Start with hell and go from there.