What Women Can Learn From Camille Claudel

Rodin’s lover has a lot to teach us about love, passion, and patriarchy

There’s one sculptor’s works that I can’t seem to take my eyes off of. 20 years ago, when I walked into the Musee Rodin in Paris for the first time, what captured me wasn’t Rodin’s works but it was Camille Claudel’s. Her sculptures evoke complex and deep emotions in her audience. Her sculptures are brave, succinct, and poignant. The commentaries she makes with her sculptures are unapologetic.

In the last 20 years, I went back two more times to “drink in” her brand of feminism, her unrelenting pursuit of her ideals, and her heart.

These memories linger to this day.

Her Life

After studying in Academie Colarossi, Camille studied with Alred Boucher who became her mentor. In 1884, Alfred Boucher moved to Florence and asked Rodin to take over instructions of his pupils. Camille started to work with Rodin in his workshop. It’s a different society then. Women were not allowed to pursue an artistic career. There were very few schools that she could enroll in. Rodin was affected by her immediately. Her friend, the art critic Octave Mirbeau described her as “A revolt against nature: a woman genius.”

She and Rodin shared a deep mutual passion in their artistic pursuits. She quickly became Rodin’s lover for many years until 1892. Rodin was unwilling to leave his wife of 20 years, Rose Beuret. During that time, Rodin and Claudel both produced many works that were inspired by their relationship.

In 1892, Camille severed her physical relationship with Rodin after an abortion. But, she still saw Rodin until 1898. She needed Rodin to support her artistic endeavors to gain Patronage from the French government.

She lucked out in a way that she came from a good family that had accumulated wealth. Even though her mother and everyone else didn’t support her career, her father understood her career choice. He supported her financially until his death in 1913.

In 1913, upon her father’s death, her brother had her committed to a mental institution for the next 30 years, 8 days after her father’s death. He did not want to share his inherited wealth and support his sister’s artistic lifestyle. During her time in the mental institution, her mother never visited her. After Camille passed away in 1943, she was buried in a grave with many “unnamed” people in the communal cemetery of the mental institution. Her brother was informed of her death. But, he did not make an effort to bring her remains home and give her a proper burial.

In 1951, Paul Claudel organized an exhibition of her works at the Musee Rodin. This was the start of her fame and fortune as a sculptor. Her family capitalized on that.

Her Brand of Feminism

Camille pushed against the patriarchal society that she lived in by adapting. She didn’t give up her art. Instead, she pursued it the best way that she could at the time. She found a teacher in Rodin, a man who could champion her work. She also “convinced” her father to support her financially as well.

In her sculptures, she told the truths of what she was struggling with: love, compassion, helplessness, longing, innocence, jealousy, loss, etc.. Even though, she had many sufferings in her life, she pushed against those sufferings. Instead of hiding from them, she displayed them.

Unlike many artists whose works during “down times” where you can sense “sadness” and “helplessness”, there were only a handful of works of hers that were “sad”. Instead, her sculptures are complex with a range of emotions. But, most of them are optimistic. They were in celebration of the experiences whether these experiences were good or bad.

Some of the sculptures even have a whimsical quality to them. The moments that she captured in the sculptures are universal human moments. They are eternal struggles that both men and women can identify with.

What we learn from Camille Claudel’s Story?

If we look around today, we can still see Camille Claudel’s sufferings on display in our society today. Women who are remotely “strong” or “talented” will suffer consequences. It didn’t matter if they had skills, they had talent, or they had the drive. Life and our patriarchal societies will teach these women through a variety of experiences relentlessly to stop shining brightly so that men can shine instead.

Through the noise of the #metoo movement, even when so many women aired their grievances, after the noise, people like Weinstein are still supported by associates who want to profit from his potential rise again. The movement lived for a few news cycles. Now we are back to the status quo.

Female politicians, such as Katie Hill, who against all odds are successful in a male-dominated field only to meet the untimely death of their careers by confronting naked pictures of themselves released by exes. Unlike male politicians such as Anthony Weiner or even Bill Clinton, whose careers didn’t end because of the release of intimate photos, female politicians had their careers taken down by one single photograph.

Sexism is rife in Silicon Valley where female engineers are leaving the industry in droves citing harassment as the single biggest factor leaving technology mid-career. When Ellen Pao’s lawsuit failed, it sent a big message to women that companies are not willing to step up to support women when there are so many men are sitting at the sidelines waiting for the vacant spots that these women leave behind.

I came from Wallstreet, the amount of sexism, harassment, gender discrimination within the industry can eat away at your self-esteem for a lifetime. When a colleague asked me to go to India once for a spiritual trip, I declined citing this news piece.

When someone asked me if I would ever go back working in technology again, I reply, “I will only go for a position where I know the environment is not hostile. Otherwise, no, I rather create my own work environment.”

Women work hard. Many women who work in male-dominated fields had experiences dealing with a life-time of gender biases and discrimination in education, higher education, households, and communities before they even arrived at their workplaces.

They are experienced in handling rejections, imposter syndrome, and naysayers.

Yet, what they find at their workplaces is an infinitely more hostile environment where subtle biases leads to outright harassment and aggression. Eventually, they lead to the “glass ceiling” that is iron-clad.