Reflections is one of the smallest sculptures in the collection. It depicts a young woman sitting with her arm and head resting on one of her legs in a relaxed manner. Instead of being placed high up on a pedestal, as is the norm in classical and figurative public sculptures, she is installed on a bench close to the ground. The size and placement of Reflections makes her accessible to the viewer, especially to the park’s younger visitors.

With her thoughtful and reflective posture, Reflections draws parallels to perhaps the most famous sculpture in art history, The Thinker (Le Penseur, circa 1880) by Auguste Rodin. In contrast to The Thinker with its heroic size and depiction of an intensely contemplative man, you might say that Buseyne’s Reflections is a depiction of a human being in a more balanced frame of mind; less grand, dramatic and elevated.

The Thinker by Rodin was originally made in a smaller format for the complex composition The Gates of Hell but was later made in several monumental versions (from around 1904). Michelangelo’s (1475-1564) sculptural depiction of his patron Lorenzo de’ Medici (circa 1524), shown seated, deep in thought and contemplation in a Roman suit of armour can also be seen as a direct contrast to the depiction of a pensive girl we see in Buyseyne’s Reflections.