The Thinker

The next day I went to the Rodin Museum. This was my favorite exhibit...... so far. I think that I will just have to return to Paris at some point. I came upon the museum from the bus stop to the south. I thought as I walked along that the garden to my right seemed very inviting and that it must be a lovely place to stroll around. Much to my delight, it was part of the museum! To get to the garden, you have to go through the main entrance which is situated in this hyper modern building. It’s one of the things I love about Europe. You can have all this spectacularly beautiful old architecture and then someone has gone and plopped a super modern building in the middle of all of it. I particularly like the Gothic churches with modern steel and glass entrance foyers. I understand the reasoning, but the juxtaposition is fascinating.

I spent little time in the modern building in my haste to get to the garden. I was not disappointed for the first sculpture that I happened upon was “The Thinker.” Just sitting there, like he had been for who knows how long, thinking. Oblivious to the throngs of people walking around him and taking his picture. I wish some of my students had that kind of focus. I wish I did for that matter.

I walked across the garden to the Burghers of Calais. I was mesmerized by the feet. How did Rodin DO that anyway? The feet were so beautifully realized. Then I spent some time trying to figure out how he sculpted all these figures in such close proximity. How does that work?

Sometimes I think that being musically inclined has left me rather deficient in other areas and particularly that of visual art. I remember having a conversation with the art teacher at my school once. While we were chatting, she was sketching and as we spoke, an entire landscape appeared. It was populated with imaginary creatures, but it had taken her less than five minutes to produce. I asked her how in the world she could do that, make things magically appear like that. She shrugged and said “How do YOU pull music out of thin air?” Touché! We agreed that it was a good thing that she taught art and I taught music.

It took me a while, but I did figure out that Rodin cast the Burghers separately and then assembled them into a larger piece. Inside the old hotel portion of the museum were several exhibits detailing the process. It reminded me of Orff Schulwerk! Rodin who take several castings and then use them in different ways in different sculptures. Those of you that had art history or any sort of art class at all probably already know that. But people like me who assiduously avoided anything to do with art are amazed. It would never have occurred to me.

It’s a good thing I teach music.