From Stone to Flesh: Man and His Thought

Man and His Thought is a sculpture made for The Gates of Hell, composed of two figures. From the front you see only one, but viewed from the side, the torso of a second figure emerges.

Look closely and you'll notice the man's lower body and the woman's upper body are both left as unworked stone. This is deliberate — it represents the transformation from cold, lifeless stone into a warm-blooded living being. It calls to mind the myth of Pygmalion, the sculptor from Greek mythology who fell so deeply in love with a statue he'd carved that he begged the gods to bring it to life.

A closely related piece is The Eternal Idol, and the resemblance between the two is so strong that, with a bit more refinement, this sculpture could easily pass for that one.