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From self-image to self-destruct: Camille Claudel (1864-1943) and Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) in perspective Monday, December 1 The relationship between the French sculptors Camille Claudel (1864-1943) and Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) has attracted a great deal of attention over the last two decades: exhibitions, biographies, catalogues raisonnés, articles, novels and films have tried to acquit Camille’s artistic reputation and vindicate the originality of the fin de siècle sculptress. Camille is often seen as an underestimated genius and as a victim of circumstance. Her tragic life, her relationship with Rodin and, after their separation, the thirty unproductive years she spent in a psychiatric hospital, makes it difficult to arrive at a fair judgment of her qualities as a sculptress. In this perspective, it is appropriate to investigate on Camille’s self-image, on how she represented herself in her artistic production, on how she transposed her own experience into symbolic images or personal mythology. The sculptures of Camile Claudel that contain the most obvious autobiographical element were conceived as representations of her mental conceptions, works in which the artist proved her abilities to portray herself as a female figure which acquires the symbolic dimension of love and destiny. Torn between desire and despair, Camille tried to extinguish her own life and happiness and commited suicide in effigy, she constantly seemed to reach out and try to grasp an unattainable mythology, which she never seemed able to obtain.
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