I always thought the first flash of consciousness would have been a few complex molecules hooking up and thinking, "I am not food, but I will eat you". Gastric inspiration taking us from being part of the universe to a dominating self interest.
I am glad I had the opportunity to Google this statue.
It was refreshing to learn it's origins and it's intended name and the origin context of the piece. I constantly feel so stupid as to rarely research even popular pieces of art and almost always accepted the common notions.
From Wikipedia alone:
* "Originally named The Poet (French: Le Poète), The Thinker was initially a figure in a large commission, begun in 1880, for a doorway surround called The Gates of Hell. Rodin based this on The Divine Comedy of Dante, and most of the many figures in the work represented the main characters in the epic poem."
* "Rodin first conceived the figure as part of his work The Gates of Hell commissioned in 1880, but the first of the familiar monumental bronze castings did not appear until 1904."
* "This detail from the Gates of Hell was first named The Thinker by foundry workers, who noted its similarity to Michelangelo's statue of Lorenzo de Medici called "Il Penseroso" (The Thinker). (See .)
"Rodin decided to treat the figure as an independent work, at a larger size. The figure was designed to be seen from below, and is normally displayed on a fairly high plinth, though the heights chosen by the various owners for these vary considerably.
Other tidbits I didn't know about before:
* The sculpture is nude, as Rodin wanted a heroic figure in the tradition of Michelangelo, to represent intellect as well as poetry.
This new version of Blogspot is getting to be too annoying in it's rigorous elimination of links to other internet resources. To circumvent the link police I'm reproducing again in a different form:
https : // www . italian-renaissance-art . com /Michelangelo-sculptures . html
I always thought the first flash of consciousness would have been a few complex molecules hooking up and thinking, "I am not food, but I will eat you". Gastric inspiration taking us from being part of the universe to a dominating self interest.
ReplyDeleteI am, therefore I'm screwed.
I am glad I had the opportunity to Google this statue.
ReplyDeleteIt was refreshing to learn it's origins and it's intended name and the origin context of the piece. I constantly feel so stupid as to rarely research even popular pieces of art and almost always accepted the common notions.
From Wikipedia alone:
* "Originally named The Poet (French: Le Poète), The Thinker was initially a figure in a large commission, begun in 1880, for a doorway surround called The Gates of Hell. Rodin based this on The Divine Comedy of Dante, and most of the many figures in the work represented the main characters in the epic poem."
* "Rodin first conceived the figure as part of his work The Gates of Hell commissioned in 1880, but the first of the familiar monumental bronze castings did not appear until 1904."
* "This detail from the Gates of Hell was first named The Thinker by foundry workers, who noted its similarity to Michelangelo's statue of Lorenzo de Medici called "Il Penseroso" (The Thinker). (See .)
"Rodin decided to treat the figure as an independent work, at a larger size. The figure was designed to be seen from below, and is normally displayed on a fairly high plinth, though the heights chosen by the various owners for these vary considerably.
Other tidbits I didn't know about before:
* The sculpture is nude, as Rodin wanted a heroic figure in the tradition of Michelangelo, to represent intellect as well as poetry.
* There are about 28 full size castings.
This new version of Blogspot is getting to be too annoying in it's rigorous elimination of links to other internet resources. To circumvent the link police I'm reproducing again in a different form:
Deletehttps : // www . italian-renaissance-art . com /Michelangelo-sculptures . html
remove the spaces to get to the actual link.
Sheesh!