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Rodin
Michelangelo & David, Rembrandt & The Nightwatch, Van Gogh & Sunflowers. An artist can create a work so moving in its imagery that it becomes the
one for which he is remembered, though naturally there are other works within their
repertoire. Add Rodin & The Thinker to the list.
The Thinker
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Title: Le Penseur (Der Denker)
Detail aus dem Höllentor / The Thinker, 1880-1917
Artist: Auguste Rodin (French 1840-1917)
Medium: Bronze
Permanent Collection & Image Courtesy: Kunsthaus Zurich
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Poet Dante Alighieri, who penned The Divine Comedy, was a strong
influence on Rodin. The 1880 French Minister of Fine Arts, Antonin Proust,
commissioned Auguste Rodin to create a portal based on Dante's work. Rodin's
The Gates of Hell was never completed. Several of the images within, such as
The Thinker and The Kiss, were popular as stand-alone
sculptures. |
Dante is The Thinker. It is meant to be him, contemplating all he has
learned as he journeyed through hell, purgatory and paradise in his quest for
knowledge.
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Since it was acquired in 1947, this bronze cast, of which there are only
eight worldwide, has stood next to the main entrance to Kunsthaus Zürich. It
will greet visitors on their way to view the Rodin exhibit in Switzerland. The Kunsthaus Zürich is showing a Rodin retrospective
comprising 160 bronzes, works in plaster, and drawings including such renowned
pieces as The Kiss and The Thinker, but also rarely seen marble sculptures
such as The Earth and the Moon.
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Title: La Porte de l’Enfer (Das Höllentor) /
The Gates of Hell, 1880-1917
Artist: Auguste Rodin (French 1840-1917)
Medium: Bronze
Dimensions: 680 x 400 x 85 cm
Permanent Collection & Image Courtesy: Kunsthaus Zurich
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Title: Le Baiser (Der Kuss) / The Kiss, ca. 1881-82
Artist: Auguste Rodin (French 1840-1917)
Medium: Gips
Dimensions: 86 x 51.5 x 55.5 cm
Musée Rodin, Paris/Meudon Foto © Musée Rodin/Adam Rzepka
Image Courtesy: Kunsthaus Zurich
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First titled Francesca da Rimini, Rodin's The Kiss illustrates
"the 13th-century Italian noblewoman immortalized in Dante's Inferno (Circle
2, Canto 5). Dante knew her story. She fell in love with her husband Giovanni Malatesta's
younger brother Paolo while together they read the story of Lancelot and
Guinevere. Giovanni found the couple in a tryst and killed them.
Rodin's sculpture placed the storybook in the male's hand. |
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Rodin was among the first artists who embraced fragmentation as an artistic
principle.
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Title: Portrait des Künstlers /
Portrait of the Artist Auguste Rodin, ca. 1905
Artist: Walter Henry Barnett
Medium: Gelatinesilberabzug/Papier
Dimensions: 19.7 x 14.7 cm
Permanent Collection: Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery,
University of Glasgow Foto
© Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow
Image Courtesy: Kunsthaus Zurich
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Title: Buste de Victor Hugo (Buste von Victor Hugo) /
Bust of Victor Hugo, 1911
Medium: Bronze
Dimensions: 92 x 60 x 54 cm
Manchester Art Gallery Foto © Manchester Art Gallery
Image Courtesy: Kunsthaus Zurich
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The unique and uneven surfaces of his forms came from Rodin’s unique working of the figure’s bones, muscles and nerves. That in turn led to a distinct interplay of areas of light and shade.
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Title: La Charité (Die Barmherzigkeit) / Charity, ca. 1880
Artist: Auguste Rodin (French 1840-1917)
Medium: Feder und Deckfarbe auf sandfarbenem Papier
Dimensions: ca. 1880 , 12 x 11.1 cm
Leihgabe Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge Foto
© Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge
Image Courtesy: Kunsthaus Zurich
Every art aficionado should take the opportunity to view Rodin's Gates of Hell and absorb The Thinker and The Kiss among the treasures created by one of the
finest artists and sculptors ever know.
Exhibition Schedule:
Kunsthaus Zurich: February 9 - May 13, 2007
Kunsthaus Zurich at
www.kunsthaus.ch
Rodin Website at Kunsthaus Zurich at
www.kunsthaus.ch/ausstellungen/2007/rodin/
Switzerland Tourism at
www.myswitzerland.com
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