Season 28, Day 9 - "On Dante"

It's Sculpture week, and today's quiz is inspired by The Thinker.

The Thinker

The Thinker (Le Penseur) is a bronze sculpture by Auguste Rodin. Often used as an image to represent philosophy, it depicts a nude man sitting on a rock with his right arm resting on his left knee. Originally called The Poet, it was first conceived as a portrait of the poet Dante Alighieri for The Gates of Hell, an unfinished work depicting a scene from Dante’s Inferno (the first part of The Divine Comedy). The original 1904 bronze casting of The Thinker is housed at the Musée Rodin in Paris. There are 27 other known full-sized castings, many of which are displayed outdoors; examples include the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia, and the Cleveland Museum of Art, where the statue was damaged by a bombing in 1970. There’s also a copy of The Thinker marking Rodin’s grave in Meudon, France. On the sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, the title character could often be seen on a park bench in front of The Thinker, sometimes mimicking its trademark pose before turning to the camera.