| "The Thinker," by Auguste Rodin, generally accepted as the greatest of living sculptors, in the court of the French building. It was designed to surmount Rodin's "Gates of Hell" and to look down on the figures beneath. Some obervers find a contradiction between the great physical strength, suggesting the elemental man, and the expression of philosophical contemplation, suggesting the man of intellect. Others discover a symbol of the mass of mankind brooding on the meaning of life. From the point of view of sculpture what is most significant about the figure is the robustness of the modelling, characteristic of Rodin. |
