Tobyl’s Thinker stares up into the sky, his deep-set eyes exaggerating his thoughtful gaze as he contemplates the world beyond. His asymmetric, out-of-proportion body is oriented differently, giving him a sense of introspective energy. The stylised figure could be a modern take on Auguste Rodin’s famous pensive nude ‘The Thinker’ first conceived circa 1880 – 1881 and whose oversized version created in 1904 can be seen at the Rodin Museum in Paris. But Tobyl’s Thinker, also known as “The Man Scanning the Sky,” was created from grey-brown sandstone in northern Kazakhstan’s Qostanai region in the…