The thinker is one of my favorite pieces of art.  If you’ve never seen it, The Thinker (French: Le Penseur) is a bronze and marble sculpture by Auguste Rodin held in the Musée Rodin in Paris. It depicts a man in sober meditation battling with a powerful internal struggle. It is often used to represent philosophy.

Originally named The Poet, the piece was part of a commission by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris to create a monumental portal to act as the door of the museum. Rodin based his theme on The Divine Comedy of Dante and entitled the portal The Gates of Hell. Each of the statues in the piece represented one of the main characters in the epic poem. The Thinker was originally meant to depict Dante in front of the Gates of Hell, pondering his great poem. (In the final sculpture, a miniature of the statue sits atop the gates, pondering the hellish fate of those beneath him.) The sculpture is nude, as Rodin wanted a heroic figure in the tradition of Michelangelo, to represent intellect as well as poetry.

Rodin made a first small plaster version around 1880. The first large-scale bronze cast was finished in 1902, but not presented to the public until 1904. It became the property of the city of Paris – thanks to a subscription organized by Rodin admirers – and was put in front of the Panthéon in 1906. In 1922, it was moved to the Hôtel Biron, which was transformed into a Rodin Museum.

More than any other Rodin sculpture, The Thinker moved into the popular imagination as an immediately recognizable icon of intellectual activity; consequently, it has been subject to endless satirical use. This started in Rodin’s lifetime.

In case you could not tell, I lifted that right out of Wikipedia.  The reason I’m focusing on The Thinker is because I recently came across an interesting photo as I was digging through my years of archives.  I started to go through some photos from one of my first shoots ever and I came across this one.

This model was one of my first and this photo is one of the first photos I really liked.  It reminds me of The Thinker, but in a 20th century point of view.

Months prior to the shoot, I read that this tattoo, the bio-hazard emblem, is often used in the gay scene to depict being HIV positive.  I remember talking to this individual about the tattoo and he was completely unaware of this at the time that he got the tattoo.  He had since heard this several times.  I guess that is part of the risk you take when you get a tattoo.  You never know what that symbol may already mean to some people or what it may mean to others in the future.  This reminded me of the Asian emblems that non-Asian language speakers (or readers) have tattooed on their body.  One might ‘think’ that folks would ‘think’ these lifetime decisions through more thoroughly, perhaps even do a little more research up front; however, with a little alcohol, cash and an hour or two to spare I guess you never know.

Regardless, the story of the tattoo, the remnants tied to one of my first shoots, and the photo that ultimately (and beautifully) correlates with the ‘Gates of Hell’ in today’s modern pop culture pushed me over the edge to write about it this morning.