Matt Jenson has published an article on The Shape of our Sin in The Other Journal. An Intersection of Theology and Culture:
"When asked to design the entrance to a new Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris, Auguste Rodin settled on a scene from Dante. He would cast the gates of Hell in majestic, awful scope—20 x 13 x 3 feet of bronze. Near the top, dead center, sits a man, bigger than most of the other figures, who commands our gaze. Bent over, sitting with elbow to thigh and chin to elbow, he placidly contemplates a chaos of tormented sinners.
We know him as ‘The Thinker’, and most of us think of him stripped from context, a cultural artifact to be mimicked in our moments of mock thoughtfulness. But for Rodin, he is an infernal centerpiece, most likely Dante himself. (When Rodin showed the sculpture independently in Copenhagen in 1888, he called it ‘The Poet’.) Part of what makes Dante’s Divine Comedy so utterly successful is the way in which the pilgrimage through Hell offers a window onto the world of sin and a mirror in which to examine oneself as sinner. And, despite the marked physical composure of the Thinker in comparison to those suffering below him—him locked in place, them thrown about—it is his form that displays the underlying unity of their sins. And his form is that of one curved in on himself." Read full article
Matt Jenson is the author of The Gravity of Sin (US customers click here).
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