Auguste Rodin’s bronze sculpture of a seated man resting his chin on his hand is The Thinker.
Rodin originally conceived the figure around 1880 as part of The Gates of Hell, a monumental project inspired partly by Dante’s Divine Comedy. The seated figure was first titled The Poet and was associated with Dante contemplating the figures represented on the gates.
The work’s powerful pose is not a relaxed daydream. Rodin emphasized the tension of the entire body, including the clenched toes, bent legs, muscular back, and compressed posture. That physical strain helped make the figure a symbol of intense thought rather than a simple portrait of a philosopher.
Rodin produced and authorized multiple casts in different sizes. The best-known monumental versions are bronze, while the original conception was modeled in clay and later enlarged. The sculpture is often mistaken for a single unique object, but authorized casts exist in several museums and public collections.