Masterpiece of the Month

Thought (1895).
Auguste Rodin (1840-1917). Marble.  Musée d' Orsay, Paris.

 November 17 is World Philosophy Day. A day to stop and think; think that we're now over 7 billion on Earth, think about the political changes in the Arab world, about our grim economic crisis... Just one moment of introspection, like the one created by Rodin some 116 years ago.

 A characteristic work of Rodin's mature years, Thought is a striking bust of his -presumed- lover Camille Claudel. Her head leans forward with a sombre look - a foreboding of her unrequited love? Leaving private matters aside, Rodin manages to create a vivid "solidification" (for lack of a better word) of what thoughts may look like. They are born from the jumbled, inconsistent mass of our mind -here represented by the raw, unworked marble block- for us to shape them, work with them, polish them into what we desire, be it a witty comment or a refined portrait of a young woman. Appropriately, it's original title was Thought emerging from Matter.
 And sculpture, of all the visual arts, is the one that best represents philosophy , simply because of the fact of being three-dimensional: the enigma philosophy seeks, i.e.: the bust of Camille; needs a multiple approach to be understood. If we look from the side, she's in profile, but we can also see her from the back, front and all sorts of different angles -just like we can choose to be biased or neutral, or have, continuing with this optical theme, various points of view on a subject. .

 Rodin must have been pretty sure of his enormous role in art, creating stuff  that would change culture for ever by changing society's views on it; that being the goal of many philosophers. Because Rodin, either knowingly or not, became the philospher of stone.