After Auguste Rodin

After AUGUSTE RODIN (France, 1840 - 1917).
"Le penseur".
Sculpture in patinated bronze.
Marble pedestal.
Measurements: 27,5 x 13 x 19,5 cm.
The figure of Rodin's Thinker belongs to the sculptor's most important work, the Gates of Hell, made between 1880 and 1917. They have as their theme the Inferno of Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy", and in fact the central figure, the Thinker himself, is a portrait of Dante, who is affected by what he is seeing (friezes with the sinful figures below him), and influenced by the divine forces that announce misfortune over his head (three shadows or triple portrait of Adam). Scholars assimilate this figure also to Rodin himself: a man terrified of the world he is living in, in which technology advances unstoppably, and he is right in the middle, where he must choose whether to remain faithful to tradition or jump into the void and break all the canons established so far.