What Is The Thinker Thinking About? / 沉思者在沉思什麼？

　　The Thinker, one of the most famous sculptures of all time, was created by 19th-Century French sculptor Auguste Rodin. With its long face and tensed body, The Thinker really makes people lost deeply in their thoughts while watching it. No wonder it has appeared a couple of times in the Japanese manga Crayon Shin-chan as the idea of parody.

　　This might be the question you have long since wanted to ask: What is this "thinker" with knitted brows thinking so hard ?

　　In fact, he is more of gazing than thinking. Since The Thinker was originally created as part of the other Rodin's masterpiece The Gates of Hell, in which The Thinker was meant to be Dante, who was sitting on the lintel and gazing through the gate at all the hellish things inside the inferno.

　　Rodin then had it enlarged to a bronze sculpture of monumental size, which soon became The Thinker imprinted in most people's minds today.

　　鼎鼎大名的藝術雕像「沉思者」，乃出至十九世紀法國雕塑家奧古斯特‧羅丹之手。其沉痛的臉容，繃緊的姿態，教人望之感懷。難怪連日漫「蠟筆小新」也經常拿他來惡搞。

　　有個問題你可能早就想問：這個愁眉深鎖的「沉思者」，到底在想什麼個鬼呢？

　　其實與其說他在「沉思」，不如說他在「注視」。皆因沉思者源自羅丹的另一作品「地獄之門」。該作品中，沉思者正正就是坐在「地獄之門」門樑上的詩人但丁，注視著地獄裡各種苦難。

　　後來，羅丹將之重鑄成巨大的銅像，就成了今日人所共知的「沉思者」。