拍品专文
Rodin conceived Le Penseur around 1880 as the centrepiece for the tympanum of La Porte de l'Enfer. He originally intended this figure to represent Dante surrounded by the characters of his Divine Comedy. Even before he completed the maquettes for La Porte de l'Enfer, however, Rodin's conception of Le Penseur shifted to a more generalized symbol of creative genius.
Rodin explained: "Guided by my first inspiration I conceived another 'Thinker', a naked man, seated upon a rock, his feet drawn under him, his fist at his teeth, he dreams. The fertile thought slowly elaborates itself in his brain. He is no longer dreamer, he is creator" (A. Elsen, op. cit., 1963, p. 53).
Perhaps the most celebrated of all Rodin's sculptures, Le Penseur belongs to a group of major early works inspired by Michelangelo, whose sculpture made a deep impression on Rodin when he visited Italy in 1875 (see also lot 4). Some forty years later, Rodin recalled his concern with expressing the physical act of thinking, and the vitality and power of the creative mind: "Nature gives me my model, life and thought; the nostrils breathe, the heart beats, the lungs inhale ... the being thinks and feels ... What makes my Thinker think is that he thinks not only with his brain, with his knitted brow, with his distended nostrils and compressed lips, but with every muscle of his arms, backs and legs, with his clenched fist and gripping toes" (quoted in Saturday Night, Toronto, Dec. 1917).
Although made for La Porte de l'Enfer, Rodin considered Le Penseur to be an independent work and exhibited it as such in Copenhagen in 1888. The work proved so popular that Rodin had it cast in three sizes; a small version, 14¾ inches high; the original size, of which the present cast is an example; and an enlarged version, executed in 1902 and presented as a gift to the city of Paris in 1906.
This sculpture has been examined by the Musée Rodin and is recorded in their archives.
Rodin explained: "Guided by my first inspiration I conceived another 'Thinker', a naked man, seated upon a rock, his feet drawn under him, his fist at his teeth, he dreams. The fertile thought slowly elaborates itself in his brain. He is no longer dreamer, he is creator" (A. Elsen, op. cit., 1963, p. 53).
Perhaps the most celebrated of all Rodin's sculptures, Le Penseur belongs to a group of major early works inspired by Michelangelo, whose sculpture made a deep impression on Rodin when he visited Italy in 1875 (see also lot 4). Some forty years later, Rodin recalled his concern with expressing the physical act of thinking, and the vitality and power of the creative mind: "Nature gives me my model, life and thought; the nostrils breathe, the heart beats, the lungs inhale ... the being thinks and feels ... What makes my Thinker think is that he thinks not only with his brain, with his knitted brow, with his distended nostrils and compressed lips, but with every muscle of his arms, backs and legs, with his clenched fist and gripping toes" (quoted in Saturday Night, Toronto, Dec. 1917).
Although made for La Porte de l'Enfer, Rodin considered Le Penseur to be an independent work and exhibited it as such in Copenhagen in 1888. The work proved so popular that Rodin had it cast in three sizes; a small version, 14¾ inches high; the original size, of which the present cast is an example; and an enlarged version, executed in 1902 and presented as a gift to the city of Paris in 1906.
This sculpture has been examined by the Musée Rodin and is recorded in their archives.