writing_womans_lives_symposium_paper_book_v2

3.1. How does she reveal herself in her sculpted self‐portraits?
3.1.1. Her Self‐portrait with leaves and fruits (no date) exalts the charm of a young girl. That’s the
case also with the sculptures Vertumnus and Pomona (garden deities), The Girl with Lily or
Hamadryad (1895‐1897), as well in the psychiatric hospital of Ville‐Evrard, she will slip leaves and
flowers in her hair.
3.1.2. Her Crouching Woman (1884), where her twisting arms‐ partially hide the face. This
position refers to the sketch La Faute, describing “a girl squatting on a bench and crying. Her parents
view her with astonishment.” If this title already suggests a sin, the hidden face is her own. In her
sketch on Rodin commissioned to her (1896), Rodin points out and touches with his left hand this
same woman crouching.
3.1.3. A final self‐portrait appears in her Perseus and the Gorgon (1897‐1902), where she
resembles the snake‐haired Medusa. Additionally she poses in profile, behind the head severed by
Perseus.
In these three self‐portraits, CC presents herself, first displaying youth, then guilty withdrawal,
and suggests last her disappearance/death by murder in a free vision of herself. A number of other
physical features can however be projected ‐real or imagined‐ in her sculptures suggesting a shifting
discourse about herself. Her “auburn” hair… imposing tuft reaching down to her hips" (Paul Claudel,
1951) is often worn natural. Her hair frees up little by little in the course of her work: first sensual, at
the nape of the neck, in La Petite Chatelaine (1892, it becomes tangled in the anguish of Clotho
(1893) and in a version of La Valse (1893), and it vibrates and foams in some of the Bavardes, or
bathers of La Vague (1897), then unravels, spider‐like. In an interpretation of L’Implorante (in
patinated plaster, 1894 , version 1900) so close to Clotho, and finally turns into snake in the Medusa
(1897‐1898). The belly, sometimes heavy in some women (Niobide, L’Implorante, version 1900 L’âge
mur), evokes a hint of pregnancy. Note that these minor characters compose a trio –a number with
significance. The trio is found in one exceptionally large format The Mature age (1893).
3.2. Camille C. through her thematic sculptures
Two sculptural formats that participate in her social or intimate approach (Love /revenge),
overlap and complement each other. As if that chosen format sometimes echoed distinct feelings.
3.2.1. Small formats, prepared by sketches based on observations, are journalism in sculpture.
Les causeuses, La confidence (1893 ‐1905). According to M. Morhardt, the idea of this group is born
of the consideration of the "four women sitting opposite each other in the narrow compartment of a
railway car and seeming to confide some precious secret to each other. The enclosed compartment
becomes a screen. According to Gustave Geffroy, we are present at an “appearance of inner truth,
the poetry of old age and shadow. It is a marvel of understanding and of human feeling, by these
poor bodies, joined together, heads close together, the secret that is being brought out, and it is also,
by the shadow of the corner, the mystery of the light and darkness created around the talker and
listeners, a proof that the force of art must be there, ready to create wholes"( 1895).
These little personages lead the autonomous lives of little toys, handled by children And so the
Bavardes, as well as other small works, become the bathers of La vague.
The chimney brings out two propositions: first a woman, standing, presses her hands on the front
of fireplace and leans toward the flames; another woman, seated, is turned towards the hearth. The
pensive solitary is drawn by the same flame. In the asylum, she dreams of her happy past: "I would
love to be in front of the fireplace of Villeneuve, but – alas‐ I’ll never leave Montdevergues”(1932).
3.2.2. The middle‐size and large formats offer an obvious mythological reference which often ‐‐
almost always– clarify her own life, while giving it thus a universal value. The artist moves among
legends, whether projecting her life into them, or seeing her existence through them.
They serve opposite tendencies: rarely joy, more often pain.
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