Focus on The Thinker and discuss the Reception.
Max Linde had a copy of the monumental version cast in 1904 and placed it in the garden of his villa, Lindesche Villa. There Edvard Munch painted his painting Rodin's Thinker in the Garden of Dr. Linde, which is now in the Behnhaus. The cast later went to the Detroit Institute of Arts.
In his film The Great Dictator, Charlie Chaplin shows the Venus de Milo and Rodin's Thinker with the modification that the left arms are stretched out in the Hynkel salute. With this allusion to the Nazi salute, Chaplin addresses the integration of art into Nazi propaganda. In the film Night at the Museum 2, the protagonists encounter a statue of the Thinker that has been brought to life. When asked a question, he simply replies, "I think...I think...I think." Later in the film, he flirts with a statue of Aphrodite. In Death at a Funeral, the statue is quoted as Alan Tudyk sitting naked on a rooftop in a "thinking pose." In Midnight in Paris, the then French first lady Carla Bruni made a cameo appearance as a tour guide, explaining the sculpture of the Thinker to a group of American visitors in the garden of the Musée Rodin.
In singer Ariana Grande's "God Is a Woman" music video, she sits in the Thinker pose while being attacked by small angry men. They throw into them words taken from the book they are on. However, these bounce off the singer when they reach her.
As part of the Stadt.Wand.Kunst project launched in Mannheim for the painting of houses in the city with large-scale wall paintings (so-called murals) by national and international artists from the street art scene, Rodin's Thinker was taken up and the mural The Modern Thinker implemented.
God Is a Woman God The Great Dictator Mannheim Nazi propaganda Death at a Funeral Musée Rodin Midnight in Paris The Modern Thinker Charlie Chaplin Night at the Museum 2 Edvard Munch Nazi salute street art Ariana Grande cameo appearance Paris Max Linde Alan Tudyk Detroit Institute of Arts Behnhaus Stadt.Wand.Kunst left Venus de Milo Carla Bruni