Editing Camille Claudel (section)

===Auguste Rodin===
[[File:La Valse.jpg|thumb|upright|''[[The Waltz (Claudel)|The Waltz]]'', conceived in 1889 and cast in 1905]]

Claudel started working in Rodin's workshop in 1883<ref name="The Art Story" /> and became a source of inspiration for him. Under Rodin’s guidance Claudel was able to perfect her own work in a variety of materials like plaster, bronze, marble, and onyx.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=Witherell |first=Louise R. |date=Spring–Summer 1985 |title=Camille Claudel Rediscovered |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1358057?origin=crossref |journal=Woman's Art Journal |volume=6 |issue=1 |pages=1 |doi=10.2307/1358057}}</ref> She acted as his model, his confidante, and his lover. She never lived with Rodin, who was reluctant to end his 20-year relationship with [[Rose Beuret]].

Knowledge of the affair agitated her family, especially her mother, who already detested her for not being a boy and never approved of Claudel's involvement in the arts.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Runco|first1=Mark A. |last2=Pritzker|first2=Steven R. |title=Encyclopedia of Creativity |date=20 May 2011 |publisher=Academic Press |isbn=9780123750389 |page=763 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dI6mI7kg4O0C&pg=PT763 |via=books.google.com}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Mahon|first1=Elizabeth Kerri |title=Memories of Our Lost Hands: Searching for Feminine Spirituality And Creativity |date=2011 |publisher=Penguin |isbn=9781101478813 |pages=37–38 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JgQmOA61vR0C&pg=PT199}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Schmoll gen. Eisenwerth|first1=J. Adolf |title=Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel |url=https://archive.org/details/augusterodincami0000schm |url-access=registration |date=1994 |publisher=Prestel |isbn=9783791313825 |page=[https://archive.org/details/augusterodincami0000schm/page/109 109]}}</ref> As a consequence, Claudel was forced to leave the family home.<ref name="The Art Story" />

In 1891, Claudel served as a jurist at the National Society of Fine Arts, reported to be "something of a boys' club at the time."<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://hyperallergic.com/374982/sculptor-camille-claudel-finally-gets-her-own-museum/|title=Sculptor Camille Claudel Finally Gets Her Own Museum|last=Sheerin|first=Mark|date=2017-04-25|website=Hyperallergic|language=en-US|access-date=2020-04-17}}</ref>

In 1892, after an abortion, Claudel ended the intimate aspect of her relationship with Rodin, although they saw each other regularly until 1898.<ref>{{cite book |author=Mahon, Elizabeth K. |title=Scandalous Women: The Lives and Loves of History's Most Notorious Women |location=New York |publisher=Penguin Group |date=2011}}</ref>

Le Cornec and Pollock state that after the sculptors' physical relationship ended, she was not able to get the funding to realise many of her daring ideas – because of sex-based censorship and the sexual element of her work. Claudel thus had either to depend on Rodin or to collaborate with him and see him get the credit as the lionised figure of French sculpture. She also depended on him financially, especially after her loving and wealthy father's death, which allowed her mother and brother, who disapproved of her lifestyle, to maintain control of the family fortune and leave her to wander the streets dressed in beggars' clothing.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Akbar|first1=Arifa |title=How Rodin's tragic lover shaped the history of sculpture |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/how-rodins-tragic-lover-shaped-the-history-of-sculpture-8026836.html |website=The Independent |location=London |date=2012}}</ref>

Claudel's reputation survived not because of her once notorious association with Rodin, but because of her work. The novelist and art critic [[Octave Mirbeau]] described her as "A revolt against nature: a woman genius."<ref>{{Cite web |date=2020-07-02 |title=Camille Claudel, une icône au destin tragique |url=https://www.connaissancedesarts.com/peinture-et-sculpture/camille-claudel-icone-au-destin-tragique-11142437/ |access-date=2020-09-29 |website=Connaissance des Arts |language=fr}}</ref> Her early work is similar to Rodin's in spirit but shows imagination and lyricism quite her own, particularly in the famous ''[[The Waltz (Claudel)|The Waltz]]'' (1893).

The contemporary French critic Louis Vauxcelles stated that Claudel was the only sculptress on whose forehead shone the sign of genius like [[Berthe Morisot]], the only well-known female painter of the century, and that Claudel's style was more virile than many of her male colleagues'. Others, like Morhardt and Caranfa, concurred, saying that their styles had become so different, with Rodin being more soft and delicate and Claudel being vehement with vigorous contrasts, which might have been one reason for their break up, with her becoming ultimately his rival.{{sfn|Elsen|Jamison|2003|p=308}}{{sfn|Vollmer|2007|p=249}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rodin|first1=Auguste|last2=Crone|first2=Rainer|last3=Salzmann|first3=Siegfried|title=Rodin: Eros and creativity|date=1997|publisher=Prestel|isbn=9783791318097|page=41}}</ref>

As historian Farah Peterson describes, Claudel's ''Clotho,'' exhibited at the 1893 Salon of the [[Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts]], serves as an "important example of how sharply Claudel’s vision diverged from Rodin’s."<ref name="Peterson">{{cite news |last1=Peterson|first1=Farah |title=Camille Claudel's 'Revolt Against Nature'|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/01/camille-claudel-sculptor-rodin-chicago-art-institute-exhibit/676148/ |website=The Atlantic |location=New York |date=2023}}</ref>
Claudel depicted [[Clotho]], one of the [[Three Fates]] in Greco-Roman mythology responsible for deciding human destiny, as a very elderly woman. Unlike Rodin and other male artists of the time, Claudel "did not shy away from exploring the female grotesque;" indeed, "she could find power in grotesquerie." In this way, ''Clotho'' can be seen as exemplifying something rare and exhilarating: an "utter indifference to the male gaze."<ref name="Peterson"/>

Claudel's [[onyx]] and bronze small-scale ''La Vague (The Wave)'' (1897) was also a conscious break in style from her Rodin period. It has a decorative quality quite different from the "heroic" feeling of her earlier work.