Customer Reviews

Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel (Pegasus Library)

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Schmoll has taken the party line on this piece and looks at every reason to discredit Claudel to the benefit of Rodin. Criticism of Claudel goes so far as to imply that her best works could have been touched up by Rodin. Schmoll even takes time to nitpick at Claudel's looks, pointing out that they were marred by a "weak" chin. From the beginning Schmoll compares the work of a young girl's in her 20's to that of a man in his 40's. It is one of the poorest critical studies of an artist that this reader has ever read.

Camille Claudel was a brilliant sculptor and one of Rodin's proteges - and mistresses. She was obsessed by him - and about 25 years younger - and grew jealous when he would not give up his longtime lover. Gradually a pscyhotic tendencies appeared until she grew really mad and destroyed most of her work. Her last 30 years or so were spent in an asylum in France. Most people think she got a raw deal. Nowadays she would never have been incarcerated. Tragic story very well told here, with interesting photographs.

Camille Claudel was too genuine, too proud an artist to ever allow her work to be a copy of Rodin's. Who knows maybe it should be the other way: Rodin copying Claudel...

I found this book engaging and very interesting. The relationship between Claudel and Rodin is examined fully and with an eye to historical accuracy. Though some may wish to champion the cause of an artist largely unrecognized in important critical scholarship, such politicization of an historical event to meet modern aims is untenable at best. For those seeking an honest, thoughtful account of a dynamic and difficult relationship between a premier artist and an aspiring sculptor this book is worth the read. The reproductions are dazzling in quality and the design is pleasing and neat.