“The Thinker” is a popular and evocative sculpture, often featured in advertisements to symbolize the power of thought. But if such was Rodin's intent, why the larger work incorporating this sculpture entitled “The Gates of Hell”?
Yes, I have heard of interpretations in which “The Thinker” symbolizes Dante (the author of “The Devine Comedy” which is believed to have inspired the larger work) and in which it symbolizes Rodin himself. But when I think back to the rural America of my youth, I have to wonder whether “The Thinker” (as opposed to, say, “The Doer”) might not be an integral part of “The Gates of Hell”.
My suspicions were strongly reinforced when I watched the film “Master and Commander”. This excellent film features one of my (many) favorite pieces of music, “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis”, composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1910. For me, this piece evokes feelings of deep thought and mediation, the same feelings I get when working on an extremely hard problem whose solution might consume months. The first part of the piece brings to mind fruitlessly but persistently exploring blind alleys of all kinds, always returning to the beginning and starting anew.
About ten minutes into the piece, the music swells triumphantly in a massive ephiphany, where the solution springs into one's mind in its full glory in a single instant. But then comes a series of declining notes: the “solution” is fatally flawed, failing to cover critically important cases. The music returns to its earlier themes: more blind alleys. The piece closes with a more subdued epiphany, evoking the all-too-common situation where the solution is really not all that difficult — if you look at the problem in just the right way.
So far, so good.
But where in “Master and Commander” is this piece used?
In the death scenes!!!
Whatever differences I might have with America's movie industry, I cannot credibly claim that they lack understanding of their target audience. So, then, who am I to argue with their implicit judgement that the typical American will engage in deep thinking only when facing death itself?
That said, I firmly believe that thought is useful only to the extent that it informs words and deeds. So perhaps those typical Americans in the movie industry's target audience could be doing worse.