The most painful book I have ever read. | Camille Claudel: Une Femme

book: Camille Claudel: Une Femme | Anne Delbee, Carol Cosman

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	• Camille Claudel: Une Femme Anne Delbee, Carol Cosman Mercury House, 2004 - 404 pages average customer review:based on 2 reviews
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A Remarkable Biography of a Remarkable Woman

Ann Delbee's nonfiction treasure introduces us to one of the most compelling personalities of recent history. Camille Claudel was, in trite terms that fail miserably to serve her, a contemporary, colleague, and lover of the famed sculptor Auguste Rodin. Not merely a biography, but an unabashed dissection of the life, loves, and works of a true Renaissance woman, this biographical masterpiece illuminates every nuance of an extremely complex persona. Detail and development are so extensive that it is difficult to remind oneself that this is not AUTOBIOGRAPHY. We are thrust into the midst of the stormy relationship between Claudel and Rodin and learn of her influence on the great artist's life and work. At the same time we reflect on Claudel's own place in the art world of her time. The artist paints a vivid portrait of Camille's home and family life, particularly the special bond she shared with her brother, the poet Paul Claudel. Delbee succeeds with splendor in developing an understanding of Camille's unique positon as a woman in her society. Ultimately, Camille Claudel rises from these pages both triumphant and tragic.

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The most painful book I have ever read.

This is a book that I wish I had not read and yet it is one of the best books I have ever read. Camille Claudel's soul found it's path into mine and I felt all the hate towards August Rodin that she was incapable of because of her love for him and breathtaking passion for her own and his work. In a lot of ways this book resembles "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest" in revealing how a human spirit will not bend....

The life of Camille Claudel, the great 19th-century sculptor, is a tragic story of a woman who was ahead of her time. In fin-de-siecle France the proper focus of a woman's energy was her home and her only acceptable identity was an extension of her father, brother, or husband. Sculpture-dirty, supremely unladylike work-was an especially scandalous metier for the daughter of a respectable family to choose. Brilliant and strong-willed, Claudel dared to pursue artistic achievement and public recognition.

The pressure of an intolerant society exacted its toll, however. Claudel's critical standing was persistently overshadowed by her 15-year liaison with Auguste Rodin. And fears that her scandalous lifestyle would jeopardize her brother's diplomatic career influenced her parents' decision to commit her to an insane asylum, where she unhappily spent the final thirty years of her life. Less than a century after the height of her success, Camille Claudel's only place in history was in reference to her brother, the poet Paul Claudel, and the sculptor Auguste Rodin, her mentor and lover.
The 1982 French publication of Anne Delbee's Une Femme catapulted Claudel back into her rightful place in the accepted pantheon of great artists. Combining conscientious historical research with the narrative perspective of a woman artist of today, this fictionalized biography has rescued a significant sculptor from the obscurity into which so many women of the past have fallen.

Anne Delbee is an author, producer, and actor, and founder of the Go Theater. She is currently the creative director of the National Drama Center in Angers. She lives in Paris.

Carol Cosman is the translator of Sartre's multivolume biography of Flaubert, The Family Idiot. She is coeditor of the anthologies The Other Voice and The Penguin Book of Women Poets. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

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