The Forgotten Nuance of Camille Claudel
The Mind Beneath the Muse.
Illustration: Paige Chiusolo
While in France this past summer, I found myself quietly browsing the rooms of a nearly naked Musee Rodin. Frankly I’d never sought sculpture out; ninety percent of my reason for visiting could be attributed to the estate’s rich gardens and picturesque architecture. However, as I carefully bent forward to observe the meticulous carvings, I found myself drawn to works with a particular name attached to slips of artist statements; Camille Claudel. Somehow, she made immovable slabs of marble seem in motion. Reaching, frozen, or pulling away.
Sculptor Camille Claudel (1864–1943) has recently gained recognition for her extraordinary talent and ingenious contributions to the art world. She is now celebrated for her nuanced portrayal of human expression and creative compositions in marble and bronze. However much of Claudel’s life has been sensationalized in media that reduces her legacy to one of victimhood shaped by a failed romance with Auguste Rodin and descent into madness.
French art critic Octave Mirbeau had called her “something unique, a revolt of nature, a woman genius.” Such commentary represents her position in the art world—a woman first, genius second. She possessed the unpasteurized quality of male artistic talent inside the unsettling body of a woman. Although a woman’s presence in all artistic mediums was challenged, sculpture was an intrinsically masculine field. It was physically demanding, often involved nudity, and was inseparable from male political systems. Sculpture was not a polite art – teachers could not subjugate women to sensible subjects, the way female painters were assigned still life florals, so Claudel's ambition was transgressive. In 1883, when established sculptor Auguste Rodin
asked Claudel to be his pupil and studio assistant, it is not surprising that she complied. Working with Rodin provided Claudel rare access to the study of the nude figure and the opportunity to hone her skills without the nagging repression of benevolent sensibility. In the years she spent working with Rodin, Claudel was his right hand, mistress, and muse. Claudel was instrumental in the creation of some of Rodin’s masterpieces, she modeled hands and feet for his Burghers of Calais and posed for figures in The Gates of Hell. It is impossible to separate the two sculptors’ relationship from their art. The tumultuous affair was the arterial pathway that drove blood into the bodies they rendered from clay. They were each other’s muses. Although the sentiment may seem romantic, its quality is thwarted by the different ways they used each other’s likeness. Claudel titled her portrait of Rodin's face “Auguste Rodin” whereas Rodin used her likeness for other purposes: she became an allegory for war, for France, and for thought. She made his face, and he made her the face of his ideas.
Despite their frequent collaborations and the artistic influence that flowed both ways, Claudel was alone in facing criticism. Critics called her the derivative of a master. The lesser product of a genius. Claudel was criticised for copying Rodin’s style, despite her influence on some of his works, such as Young Girl with a Sheaf (1886–87), which preceded and likely inspired Rodin’s Galatea. Furthermore, despite her sculptures being recognised for their nuanced depiction of the human form, Claudel faced censorship from critics who considered her work overly sexual and inappropriate for a woman to have created. In her medium-defying piece entitled “The Waltz”, French commissioners required that she add drapery to cover up the nude form of the female subject. This demand was not required of male artists, demonstrating how Claudel's gender impacted her artistic process and the reception, revealing an additional barrier women faced. However, the added drapery serves as a testament to her mastery, considering the ingenuity of her diagonal composition of the piece. Claudel was able to construct the complex drapery in a way that both conveys fluid motion, and weightlessness despite the heavy materials. The accepted assumption is that Claudel began to suspect that Rodin was fuelling the criticism and was working against her. So, in 1893, she left Rodin’s studio determined to forge her own distinct style. In the following years, Claudel broke away from the traditional medium and leaned into the beauty of lived experiences by creating miniature sculptures of women in everyday scenes. This work was unprecedented, lacking historical references and classical inspiration, demonstrating Claudel's determination to subvert the existing genre. Claudel established mastery in her own right with famous pieces such as The Age of Maturity, Clotho, and Perseus and the Gorgon. Each sculpture demonstrates her expansive scholarly knowledge of historical influences and mythos. She excelled in blending narrative with composition, each piece a potent and effective statement on time and the lived experience. Despite her accomplishments, Claudel endured financial strain, isolation, and paranoia related to the criticisms she faced throughout her entire career. In a letter to an acquaintance, Claudel wrote, “It has become clear to me that I am the plague. The cholera of generous and benevolent men who deal with matters of art.” Disillusioned by the male-dominated art world, she sculpted a version of Medusa where the monster’s face mirrored her own, representing the futility she felt.
In 1913, Camille Claudel was institutionalized at the Ville-Évrard Asylum due to paranoid psychosis, where she remained until she died in 1943. While her life is often described as a tragedy –and in many ways, it was – Claudel's contributions to the art world and her fierce determination to resist an unaccepting patriarchy cannot be overlooked. Though her face and body were turned into a man's canvas to express his ideas, the very eyes and hands he borrowed created nuanced and timeless depictions of the human experience.
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