The French artist, Camille Claudel, was born the 8th December 1864 in Fére-en-Tardenois.
At an early age, Camille was interested in sculpture. Before she turned 18 years old, her family moved to Paris, where she visited courses in the Academie Colarossi and established her own atelier together with two other young female sculptors. The sculptor Alfred Boucher (1850-1934) visited their Atelier and provided advice to their works once a week.[1]
Later in 1883, Claudel had the possibility to study with Auguste Rodin, and shortly after, she began working in Rodin’s Atelier. They worked together for several years and kept a romantic relationship.
In Claudel’s works, a special skillfulness and exploration of the material as well as a unique style exploration are visible. There have been lots of discussions about the influence of Rodin in her work and vice versa. Camille confronted recurrent comparisons with Rodin during her art career.[2]
“During Camille Claudel’s lifetime, she pursued a career that was largely defined in terms of Auguste Rodin. This perspective of her work may be seen most notably in the reactions to her sculpture L’Âge Mûr. This work was interpreted as an allegory of two women’s struggle for one man – the artist Rodin.” [3]
The interpretations of Camille Claudel’s pieces have frequently been biographical. Paul Claudel, a poet, and her diplomat brother established this tradition of understanding Claudel’s art pieces as a visual representation of every stage and event of her life, above all about her romantic relationship with Rodin. Years after Camille’s death, Paul Claudel published an article for an exhibition catalog at the Musée Rodin, describing and interpreting her works merely with a biographical approach.[4]
Intending to find an economical and artistic independence, and most importantly, to distance her work from Rodin’s influence in order to gain her own artistic recognition, Camille aimed to develop her own artistic style totally different from Rodin. In search of an artistic independence, Camille created several pieces where her artistic pursuit began to be visible.
Here it is important to remark as well the artistic environment that surrounded Camille Claudel, namely Paris the international cultural center at that time. The Royal Academies of Art were well established in Europe and represented the most significant professional art societies. The art academies established an important artistic tradition. Besides the artistic instruction, they held the annual or semi-annual exhibitions. The Academies were places to display and show to the critics the artist’s works.[5]
“However, by the mid-nineteenth century, academies across Europe were undercut by what would later be seen as avant-garde movements. Some artists sought change from within, exhibiting their radical works at these official venues.”[6]
Consequently, this means that the artistic environment that surrounded Claudel was rich in variety and, most importantly, inspired by challenging the academic dominance of the art sphere.
Claudel’s art-piece Clotho, a plaster, and later marble female sculpture, which is the main focus of this article, was probably the beginning of Claudel’s own artistic style exploration,[7] doubtlessly influenced as well by the academic and nonacademic artistic environment at the moment.
Camille Claudel’s Clotho
In 1893 an older woman who worked as a model in Rodin’s atelier posed for Claudel for the creation of Clotho.[8]
Camille Claudel named her sculpture after Clotho, one of the three Fates from Greek mythology; the goddesses in charge of threading the destiny, a topic to which I will refer back later.
The drafts of the torso figure are exhibited in Musée d’Orsay. The plaster version of Clotho was exhibited at the Salon of 1893 and is nowadays kept in the Musée Rodin
The final marble piece was completed in 1897; however, its whereabouts are unknown.
“Through Clotho, Claudel is able to show the viewer once again that, though she may be working from similar themes as Rodin and his other assistants, she still has the creativity and skill to create an individual work of art. Not only did she create a sculpture that called upon classic literature, but she also found technical inspiration in Rodin’s studio – and possibly even Art Nouveau – in one work of art.”[9]
Claudel’s sculpture portrays an old naked woman standing over a roughed textured basis. She is thin, almost skeletal, with visible traces of the aging body. Her posture is slightly leaning to a side with her head and neck much more inclined like bearing the weight of her voluminous hair.
Clotho’s posture is evoking a flowing movement. Her arms are positioned in an intent to counterbalance the weight of the head, her separated and slightly bended knees in conjunction with the one arm holding her hair. She looks like she is about to take a step or that she is standing and “captured” in a moment of free and dynamic movement.
Her face with prominent cheekbones is half-covered by the hair. The rendering of the neck, breast, and stomach show baggy flesh by age, which allows the ribs to be visible through the loose skin.
The voluminous top part of the sculpture, the figure’s hair has a strong, heavy rendering. The texture is rough and split into thick parts, like thread or roots. The voluminous and roughed textured hair has different sizes, it is tangled at the level of the back and neck and comes down tangling up on her arms and legs. The sinuous shape of the hair falls down to her ankle, rounding her left leg. All the parts that formed the voluminous hair are eventually divided into just two thick sections, which are rooted in the basis.
Despite the volume and length of the hair, it has no weightless mobility. Instead, it twirls and has a similar structure of wet, thick hair or tree roots. Her right arm is holding her head and hair, and the left one is stretched out with a section of hair over the hand. Her tilted head reveals a deep look in her eyes and her mouth sketches a grimace.
“Clotho’sspindly hair, for example, speaks to the sinuous lines that were so revered in Art Nouveau.”[10]
It is clearly visible that Claudel’s figure does not follow the classical academic ideal standards closely. Though the old Clotho from Camille Claudel is a full-body standing figure, its posture is not following an academic pose. The sculpture’s posture has seemingly an engaged leg carrying most of the weight and a free leg that enhances the perception of a walking movement, which portrays Clotho as if she is about to step, or walk, like a contrapposto. But Clotho is not portraying the gracefulness and elegance of ancient antique figures. Instead, her posture seems to be purposely unbalanced by the weight of the hair, which forces the figure to break the elegant academic body position.[11]
Claudel didn’t portray the Fate goddess following the ancient Greek tradition with the folding garments, nor is she depicting it as a beautiful woman, which would follow the academic ideals. However, despite all the aforementioned, it seems she is not either desisting entirely of these standards. Claudel is indeed depicting an antique Roman-Greek motif, namely a myth, and here might be highlighted as well that Clothohas a powerful theatrical posture, she seems to be emerging from somewhere, heading forwards.
The Fates myth
The Moirai or Parcae in the Greek Mythology also commonly known as Fates, were three sister deities named: Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. The description of the three goddesses appears first in Hesiod’s epic poem the Theogony (ca. 700 B.C.E.).
Hesiod presents the three fates as the daughters of Zeus and Themis. The goddesses personified the destiny and life: they were in charge of spinning “the thread of a mortal’s life at birth and thus determined his destiny.”[12]
Every goddess had a specific task and a special attribute that distinguish her: Clotho being the youngest, is presented as “the Spinner.” Clotho held the distaff to spin the thread of life and therefore was the one who decided birth; Lachesis “the Apportioner” measured the length of the thread and spun out the course of life; and Atropos the eldest sister, “the inflexible” had the task to cut off the thread which turned her in the Fate of death.[13]
Thomas Blisniewski, explains in his book „Kinder der dunkelen Nacht “(1992), that the Fate sisters determine not only the duration of life but the quality of it as well. Blisniewski describes how in various myths, the thread had a specific color and structure that could bespeak for the quality of life; for example, a strong thread predicted happiness and good luck while a black thread bad luck.[14]
The three Fates represented the supreme arbitresses of humanity’s fate, and they often appear together in many classical traditions. The artistic representations of the three sisters have some variations according to the time as well. Nevertheless, in most of the depictions, they are represented as a group and carry their attributes, which have made them identifiable.
Fig.: Peter Paul Rubens: The destiny from Marie de Medici, 1621-1625, 394 x 155 cm, Oil on canvas, Paris, Musée du Louvre.
Depicting the three sisters together, as aforementioned, completed the allegory of fate portraying the three stages of life and symbolized by the attributes and the task of each one of the goddesses. This means that the three sisters together summarized the human existence.
Claudel’s Clotho
It is undoubtful that the representation of the Fates has not been static over the years but, despite the changes, their attributes (distaff, scissors, and the measure of the thread) were usually the elements that allow the spectator to understand the allegory.[15]
Some artworks depicted the Three Fates as youthful and graceful women, representing the goddesses of fate in the strict sense of the term, reinforcing the idea of the goddesses in charge of the construction of the path of life, from birth to death. In the depictions in which the goddesses appeared like three old and ugly women, Goya’s painting Atropos or the Fates (1820-1823)serves here as an example, the motif of the Fates is directly related to death. They represent an allegory of the duration of life, threading the path of life to an end.
There are interesting comparisons to be analyzed between the tradition of the Fate Clotho and the depiction of Camille Claudel’s figure. Clotho is normally the fate in charge of the beginning of life. Camille Claudel’s Clotho however is depicted as an old, nearly skeletal woman, with all the traces of an aged body. She doesn’t carry the distaff, nor is she depicted doing her task as the “Spinner.”
The connection of Camille’s Clotho with the myth, besides the name of the art piece, might be the rendering of the hair. In Claudel’s figure, the strands of hair are thick with a rough texture, which could evoke to the texture of a thread.[16]
Determined by her biography and her own artistic development, it is known that Camille Claudel had knowledge of classic mythology not only because of her earlier works and studies but thanks to her father´s book collection, too[17].
Nevertheless, Claudel’s Clotho is represented separated from her sisters Atropos and Lachesis and depicted without the traditional attributes. Claudel’s aged figure with her impressive heavy thread-like hair portrays a woman whose hair/thread has grown rampantly and begins to entangle itself. In this figure, Claudel seems to have depicted the goddess like a Clotho who is tied in her own hair, in her own life thread.[18]
Despite this and the fragile thinness of the sculpture, it does not show a dying or shamed woman, she looks strangely empowered by her hair and standing pose.[19]
This feature can be described in connection to the depiction of Venus by William-Adolphe Bouguereau.
Venus description in relation to Clotho
Bouguereau’s oil academic painting The Birth of Venus (1879) was exhibited in the Paris Salon from 1879. It won the Prix de Rome as well and was bought by the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris where it was exhibited until 1920. Nowadays, The Birth of Venus is exhibited in Musée d´Orsay in Paris. The art-piece represents an exemplification of the academic art of that time[20], the rendering of Venus follows the example set by the classic tradition and Bouguereau portrays Venus with a dynamic elegant contrapposto, which enhances movement and displays an idealized Venus.
Venus (or her Greek counterpart Aphrodite) is associated with love and feminine beauty and has been a popular subject in art since ancient times[21].
On the one hand, Hesiod describes that Aphrodite/Venus was born out of sea foam after Crono emasculated Uranos and his blood dropped into the sea. Venus stepped on a scallop shell ashore. On the other hand, according to Homer, Venus was the daughter of Dione and Zeus.
“The Greeks explained her name as deriving from aphros, or “foam,” seemingly concurring with Hesiod in respect of her origin, though this is not a “traditional” Olympian origin, as it would make her more ancient and therefore more essential than Zeus.” [22]
The myth presents Venus as a docile female principle related to water and in charge of providing balance to life. Venus balances the opposite tempers, connecting the male and female.[23]
Venus was usually depicted naked or partially naked. The goddess’ attributes are among others: the swan, the pomegranate, the dove, Myrtle, and sparrows were sacred to her. It is believed that the goddess of love renews her virginity periodically in the sea at Paphos[24].
She is usually depicted as a beautiful, docile, but simultaneously extremely powerful woman. All this, considering what Hesiod mentions in Theogony that her very birth resulted from the castration of Uranos,
“Venus, goddess of love, has provided the perfect subject through which twentieth-century artists have expressed their association of humanistic and aesthetic ideals with a woman. Because she has represented the standard of beauty through the centuries, Venus has lent herself to historicizing more than any other mythical figure, and artists wanting to comment on earlier art are likely to turn to her.”[25]
In association with the tradition of the depiction of Venus, the mythological scene from Bouguereau shows the naked Venus standing in the center of the image, she has just been born and stands on her sea-shell. Various other characters are gathered around her with admiration in their gaze. The brushstrokes are so soft, they are not visible, and the rendering of the characters has a porcelain-alike finish. The application of light helps to increase the importance of the goddess, and soft highlights are visible all over the right side of her body and hair. Though the treatment of the flesh colors is relatively similar in all the female characters of the painting, Venus stands out with her warm-pink undertone.
Venus is elegantly standing while she raises her arms, and both of her hands are holding several hair strands, it seems like she is arranging her hair. Venus’s head is tilted to a side. Her face is slightly covered by her left arm, and she seems to be looking downwards. The expression in her face bespeaks serenity and a solemn look. The goddess’ hair is striking and captures special attention, her hair is long and reaches her thighs. The depiction of her locks is carefully rendered; they look thick and voluminous. At the tips of the hair, we find it divided into several wavy hair strands.
Though she is accompanied by several creatures, her position is not only highlighted by the composition of the image, which places her in the middle occupying more than half of the space, but also, most importantly for this paper, her relevance is portrayed through her elegant, sensual posture, which presents a soft contrapposto.
Comparison Venus with Clotho
Interestingly, there are some formal similarities between the Venus by Bouguereau and Clotho by Camille Claudel as well as extreme differences that could help us better understand Claudel’s Clotho.
Observing the figure of Venus in Bouguereau’s painting in relation to Claudel’s Clotho, we find the depiction of two naked women, who are standing on a base. Both, Venus and Clotho have long, voluminous and heavy hair and a comparable rendering of it, being in both sculptures the most remarkable element. Clotho’s hair presents a thick texture. Claudel’s Clotho could represent an aged version of Venus. The posture of both images is similar as well, and above all, the placing of their arms holding the hair.
The standing pose of the women is similar. Both are depicted leaning slightly to one side. On the one hand Venus shows an elegant contrapposto, and on the other hand Clotho has a naturalistic standing pose; she seems to be in motion. On both figures, the weight of the body is placed on the left leg, though Clotho seems to be losing her balance because of the fragility and the weight of her thick, heavy entangled hair.
Clotho is standing over a rough-textured base. The base is essentially shapeless and has a non-finito rendering. As such, much like the shapeless depiction of Clotho, the shapeless representation of the base can be seen as the sea-shell that transports Venus to shore.
Clotho is portrayed presenting a dichotomy of a fragile, withered woman while simultaneously looking sort of empowered by her hair. Her body looks fragile, but she looks undoubtedly powerful.
Finally, it is clear that Claudel’s Clotho representation is not portraying or following in a precise manner the tradition of the voluminous, young beautiful female nude we find in Bouguereau’s Venus. Nonetheless, as mentioned before, along with this comparison, we’ve observed that Camille Claudel might have depicted her Clotho as a Venus. In the formal language, we’ve already found some similarities. Now it is important to try to understand the reason of why Claudel might have used both traditions for her sculpture, to portray a Clotho that resembles an aged, withered Venus and a Venus that is lacking beauty, youthfulness and being alone.
What does it mean that Claudel presents Clotho like Venus?
Up to this point I’ve analyzed that Camille Claudel’s figure oscillates between the Venus and the Fates tradition. Despite them being considered as opposite, it is exactly this dichotomy that enriches the figure’s discourse. Considering this interpretation, it is proper to wonder: why would Camille present Clotho as Venus and Venus as Clotho? Why did she borrow features of both traditions for her figure? It is also important to consider that despite this oscillation in-between traditions, Camille guides the interpretation, providing the figure a specific name, which leads to a certain lecture of the sculpture.
Claudel created a figure, that implies the conjunction of opposites. In other words, Clotho seems to sway between the personification of an academic Venus (Like Bouguereous) and an anti-academic Clotho. Maybe, the representation of an aged, ugly Venus or an empowered portrayal of destiny, birth and death.
Apparently, Clotho is portraying a visual representation of an agreement/relationship/conjunction between opposites “or the simultaneous unity of past, present, and future”. [26]Here, it could also be mentioned that certainly the birth and death are interpretations closely linked to Venus and Clotho, and of course, despite being totally opposite, both are featured in Claudel’s sculpture
This concern about destiny and life was a recurrent theme in Camille’s oeuvre, for instance, the figure of The wave, where three naked women are portrayed awaiting with impatience the arrival of a big violent wave.
These pieces reflect Claudel’s own style and her seek for her own representation and “understanding of life, love, destiny, death, and God.” [27]
We might understand the presentation of Clotho as an old Venus and the involvement of the traditions as a deeper reflection of life, which Claudel was perhaps interested in showing.[28]
Taking into account that Claudel’s Clotho involves a reflection of life, like mentioned by Angelo Caranfa “a sculpture that contains the simultaneous unity of signs or gestures and silence, time and eternity, a sculpture that articulates the human condition in its transit between birth and death,”[29] all previously mentioned artistic motifs make sense, and show how destiny, the transition of life, the deep and even silent observation of all of this[30], appears not only in Clotho but in many of Claudel’s sculptures. Clotho’s connection to Venus finally has to lead us to understand this duality presented in just one sculpture better and guided us to inquire deeper in Claudel’s art process.
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[1] Cf.(Rivière, 1986, p. 11).
[2] Cf.(Rivière, 1986, pp. 9-14).
[3] (Stengle, 2014).
[4] Cf. (Paris, 1984, p. 299).
[5] Cf.(Rosenfeld, 2004).
[6] (Rosenfeld, 2004).
[7] Cf. (Rivière, 1986)., (Paris, 1984).
[8] Cf. (Callahan, 2015, pp. 19-20).
[9] (Callahan, 2015, pp. 20-21).
[10] (Callahan, 2015, p. 20).
[11] (Summers, 1977).
[12] (Reid & Rohman, 1993, p. 430).
[13] Cf. (Reid & Rohman, 1993, p. 430)., (Blisniewski, 1992, p. 5).
[14] Cf. (Blisniewski, 1992, p. 6)
[15] (Pfisterer, 2011, p. 16).
[16] (Silke, 2017).
[17] Cf. (Berger, 1990, p. 26).
[18] Cf. (Berger, 1990, pp. 26-27).
[19]Cf. (Callahan, 2015, p. 20). (Berger, 1990, pp. 26-27).
[20]Cf. (Hooper, 1879).
[21] Cf. (Aghion, Barbillon, & Francois, 2000, pp. 49-55).
[22] (Kennedy, 1998, p. 37).
[23] Cf.(Aghion, Barbillon, & Francois, 2000, pp. 49-55).
[24] Cf. (Kennedy, 1998).
[25] (Bernstock, 1993).
[26] (Caranfa, 1999, p. 107).
[27] (Caranfa, 1999, p. 41).
[28] (Flagmeier, 1989, p. 307).
[29] (Caranfa, 1999, p. 109).
[30] Cf. (Caranfa, 1999, p. 109).
