Week 36: Sep. 8, 2024

The Thinker, Auguste Rodin, French, 1880, probably cast ca. 1940, Bronze

Thinking…

I spent much time thinking about The Thinker: How odd it is for the caster to be someone separate from the artist - and for this statue to have been made even after the artist had passed; how different his face looks up close than how I imagine it from far away; and…of course, doesn’t it kind of look like he’s sitting on a toilet. Sigh…

But what I ended up being most intrigued by when I started photographing it was the wonderful coloring of the bronze in relation to the blues and greens of the sky and the trees. I specifically chose this shot because it didn’t show any of the building to the back of the statue but instead surrounds it with the natural beauty of the setting. And it was a perfectly cloudy day so the light brought all kinds of nuance to the colors.