CAMILLE CLAUDEL

In 1882 the sculptor Auguste Rodin agreed to supervise a small group of young women students, one of whom was the seventeen-year-old Camille Claudel. Auguste and Camille fell in love almost at first sight.

At the outset, Camille had recognised in Auguste Rodin a great sculptor and teacher; she was therefore prepared to submit to his direction and abandon her own will as a step along the road to art. Within a few years, however, it appears that Rodin exhausted her, demanding all her time and energy in his service. In time Camille came to resent the situation she had helped to bring about herself. By the time she broke off the relationship, in or around 1893, she had become anxious to escape Rodin's overwhelming influence and devote herself exclusively to her own art. The outward reason for the breakup was that Camille could no longer tolerate Rodin remaining with his common law wife, Rose Beuret.

Almost as soon as her relationship with Rodin ended, Camille began to neglect herself, showed signs of paranoia and became increasingly introverted. She began to exhibit a pattern of creating her sculpture in a state of euphoria and subsequently destroying it when depressed. Then her brother, the poet and diplomat Paul Claudel, stepped in to seal her fate, having her committed to a lunatic asylum. She remained confined for 30 years, until her death in 1943. She was not allowed to practise her art, and when the staff psychiatrists wanted to release her into the family's custody, her mother refused to hear of it.

Camille Claudel's story is discussed in the chapter called 'The Artist's Mistress' in The Mistress.

©Victoria Griffin, 2000

Books about Camille Claudel include:

Camille Claudel: A Life by Odile Ayral-Clause
Auguste Rodin & Camille Claudel by J.A. Schmoll gen. Eisenwerth
Camille Claudel by Angelo Caranfa
Camille Claudel by Reine Paris

There was also a film made about her life in 1979 - Camille Claudel - starring Gérard Dépardieu and Isabelle Adjani.

Links to other websites featuring Camille Claudel:

Fine Art Search Engine.
National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC: an exhibition of her sculpture.
Pinacoteca, Brazil: exhibition of her works (brilliant site).

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