There are a handful of post-Renaissance painters that nearly everyone knows by name—van Gogh, Picasso, Whistler perhaps—but for modern sculpture there is really only one name that non-art geeks consistently recognize: Auguste Rodin. The Thinker is easily Rodin’s most recognizable piece, and one of the most famous artworks of all time.
One of Rodin’s lesser known works is Man and His Thought, which depicts a powerful adult male figure “kissing” the chest of what appears to be a young adolescent girl. Radical feminists and professional outrage-mongers who fail to grasp the symbolism implied in the work’s title might propose this to be little more than a three-dimensional image of an adult male sexually abusing a young female. That would be wrong (in both senses of the word).
Auguste Rodin – Man and His Thought (1896-1900) (1)
Auguste Rodin – Man and His Thought (1896-1900) (2)
Auguste Rodin – Man and His Thought (1896-1900) (3)
Several of Rodin’s works deal with man’s—and especially artists’—relationship with his own creative impulses. This piece is one of them, as the sylphic being half-emerged from the stone represents both the source of creation (inspiration) and the creation itself (art). Like the myth of Pygmalion, to which this work alludes, the artist breathes life directly into coarse dead stone, and out of it emerges a figure of lithe feminine beauty, shown as a young girl because she is not yet fully formed, an artwork still in the process of being born.
Auguste Rodin – Man and His Thought (1896-1900) (4)
Auguste Rodin – Man and His Thought (1896-1900) (5)
Auguste Rodin – Man and His Thought (1896-1900) (6)
This is not to say that there is no sexual element here at all. Does the artist have an erotic relationship with his own work? Certainly Pymalion did. Other women failed to satisfy him, and so he created his own in Galatea, who is both his metaphorical child and his lover. (Indeed, there is even a blatantly incestuous interpretation of the myth by poet and classical studies scholar Robert Graves.) That might be enough for some critics to advance the idea that Man and His Thought justifies parent-child incest. Of course, it doesn’t. Rather, it implies that an artist’s relationship with his creative output is inherently incestuous in a psychological sense.
Auguste Rodin – Man and His Thought (1896-1900) (7)
Auguste Rodin – Man and His Thought (1896-1900) (8)
Though the two figures are mismatched in size, they seem to fit together quite snugly, suggesting that they were made for each other the way Pygmalion and Galatea are. Well, certainly one of them was made to fit the other!
Bonus: Here is a lovely illustrated tribute to Rodin’s sculpture by Sharon C. McGovern:
Sharon C. McGovern – Tribute to Rodin’s ‘Man and His Thought’
The pose somehow reminds me of another Rodin’s sculpture, the Eternal Idol. Of course, this time the female figure is an adult woman, but the position of man’s head is very similar.
http://www.musee-rodin.fr/en/collections/sculptures/eternal-idol
Great post. Could it be that he is kissing the child on its heart. Who wouldn’t to that to their child?
Interestingly, one of the most captivating pieces that I saw at the Rodin museum in Paris was titled similarly (or exactly the same) but my memory was that it was a young female child emerging from the head of the bust of an older man. It that case, there was a discrepancy of scale, more-convincingly insinuating the figurative title, rather than 2 humans literally. Also, the French title was “Un Homme avec la pensee” (or something such, my French is poor), but the translation as I understood it was actually a double entendre as penseé means “thought,” but also “pansy” (as in delicate flower) relating to the girl child. I loved it. Could someone verify this second piece?
Certainly the artist could be kissing the girl’s chest. I don’t believe there is one absolute interpretation for this work, or any other. Whatever the case, there is no doubt that it is an intimate act, done with love and delicate attention. I believe the work your referring to is ‘Man and His Genius’ (https://www.smb.museum/en/exhibitions/detail/rodin-rilke-hofmannsthal.html), which incidentally, inspired the poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem ‘Nike’.
I don’t think they are mismatched in size. I think the sizing and proportion are very accurate to the original concept of the carving. There is no “Whoops , what will people think?” back in 1896 the insane level of presumptuous condemnation of sexuality and rampant generalization of anyone merely suggesting what this beautiful sculpture represents was not near the level of insanity it is in today’s world. What a beautiful piece.