Musée Rodin in the context of "Jean Aubert (architect)"

Paris is the capital and largest city of France, with an estimated city population of 2,048,472 in an area of 105.4 km (40.7 sq mi), and a metropolitan population of 13,171,056 as of January 2025. Located on the river Seine in the centre of the Île-de-France region, it is the largest metropolitan area and fourth-most populous city in the European Union (EU). Nicknamed the City of Light, partly because of its role in the Age of Enlightenment, Paris has been one of the world's major centres of finance, diplomacy, commerce, culture, fashion, and gastronomy since the 17th century.

Administratively, Paris is divided into twenty arrondissements (districts), each having their own cultural identity. Haussmann's renovation of Paris, which created new boulevards, parks, and public works, gave birth to a modern city known as the "capital of the 19th century". Paris is a major railway, motorway, and air-transport hub; in 2024 Charles de Gaulle Airport was the EU's busiest airport. Paris has one of the most sustainable transportation systems and is one of only two cities in the world that has received the Sustainable Transport Award twice. Its Art Nouveau-decorated Métro has become a symbol of the city. Paris is known for its museums and architectural landmarks: the Musée d'Orsay, Musée Marmottan Monet, and Musée de l'Orangerie are noted for their collections of French Impressionist art, while the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Musée Rodin, and Musée Picasso are noted for their collections of modern and contemporary art. Parts of the city along the Seine have been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1991.

The Thinker (French: Le Penseur), by Auguste Rodin, is a bronze sculpture depicting a nude male figure of heroic size, seated on a large rock, leaning forward, his right elbow placed upon his left thigh, with the back of his right hand supporting his chin in a posture evocative of deep thought and contemplation. This universally recognized expression of "deep thought" has made the sculpture one of the most widely known artworks in the world. It has become the iconic symbol of thinking; images of the sculpture in profile are often used to indicate philosophy and other practices of contemplation or introspection.

Rodin conceived the figure as part of his work The Gates of Hell commissioned in 1880, but the first of the familiar monumental bronze castings was made in 1904, and is now exhibited at the Musée Rodin, in Paris.

In their most common sense, thought and thinking refer to cognitive processes that occur independently of direct sensory stimulation. Core forms include judging, reasoning, concept formation, problem solving, and deliberation. Other processes, such as entertaining an idea, memory, or imagination, are also frequently considered types of thought. Unlike perception, these activities can occur without immediate input from the sensory organs. In a broader sense, any mental event—including perception and unconscious processes—may be described as a form of thought. The term can also denote not the process itself, but the resulting mental states or systems of ideas.

A variety of theories attempt to explain the nature of thinking. Platonism holds that thought involves discerning eternal forms and their interrelations, distinguishing these pure entities from their imperfect sensory imitations. Aristotelianism interprets thinking as instantiating the universal essence of an object within the mind, derived from sense experience rather than a changeless realm. Conceptualism, closely related to Aristotelianism, identifies thinking with the mental evocation of concepts. Inner speech theories suggest that thought takes the form of silent verbal expression, sometimes in a natural language and sometimes in a specialized "mental language," or Mentalese, as proposed by the language of thought hypothesis. Associationism views thought as the succession of ideas governed by laws of association, while behaviorism reduces thinking to behavioral dispositions that generate intelligent actions in response to stimuli. More recently, computationalism compares thought to information processing, storage, and transmission in computers.

Monument to Balzac is a sculpture by Auguste Rodin in memory of the French novelist Honoré de Balzac. According to Rodin, the sculpture aims to portray the writer's persona rather than a physical likeness. The work was commissioned in 1891 by the Société des Gens de Lettres and a full-size plaster model was displayed in 1898 at a Salon in Champ de Mars. After coming under criticism the model was rejected by the Société and Rodin moved it to his home in Meudon. On 2 July 1939 (22 years after the sculptor's death) the model was cast in bronze for the first time and placed on the Boulevard du Montparnasse at the intersection with Boulevard Raspail.

Casts and various studies of the sculpture are today in many different collections including the Ackland Art Museum, Middelheim Open Air Sculpture Museum in Antwerp, The Norton Simon Museum of Art, the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, the Musée Rodin in Meudon, the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia, the Hirshhorn Museum, the Hirschhorn Sculpture Garden (Smithsonian) in Washington D.C, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, in front of the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands, in Caracas, Venezuela in the open spaces around the former Ateneo de Caracas, now UNEARTES and Balzac in the Robe of a Dominican Monk in Museo Soumaya in Mexico City. Today the artwork is sometimes considered the first truly modern sculpture.

The 7th arrondissement of Paris (VII arrondissement) is one of the 20 arrondissements of the capital city of France. It is known for being, along with the 16th arrondissement and the commune of Neuilly-sur-Seine, the richest neighbourhood in France. In spoken French, this arrondissement is referred to as le septième.

The arrondissement, called Palais-Bourbon in a reference to the seat of the National Assembly, includes some of the major and well-known tourist attractions of Paris, such as the Eiffel Tower, the Hôtel des Invalides (Napoleon's resting place), the Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, as well as a concentration of museums such as the Musée d'Orsay, Musée Rodin and the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac.

48°51′19″N 2°18′57″E / 48.85528°N 2.31583°E / 48.85528; 2.31583

The Hôtel Biron (French pronunciation: [otɛl biʁɔ̃]), known initially as the Hôtel Peyrenc-de-Moras and later as the Hôtel du Maine, is an hôtel particulier located at 77 rue de Varenne, in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, that was built from 1727 to 1732, to the designs of the architect Jean Aubert. Since 1919, it has housed the Musée Rodin, dedicated to the work of Auguste Rodin.

Camille Rosalie Claudel (French pronunciation: [kamij klodɛl] ; 8 December 1864 – 19 October 1943) was a French sculptor known for her figurative works in bronze and marble. She died in relative obscurity, but later gained recognition for the originality and quality of her work. The subject of several biographies and films, Claudel is well known for her sculptures including The Waltz and The Mature Age.

The national Camille Claudel Museum in Nogent-sur-Seine opened in 2017. Claudel was a longtime associate of sculptor Auguste Rodin, and the Musée Rodin in Paris has a room dedicated to her works.