l'enfer
"La Valse" by Camille Claudel
Octave Mirbeau constructed a narrative of lovers’ escape into another time and another space as a response to the apparent release from the law of gravity:
"Mademoiselle Camille Claudel has courageously confronted one of the greatest difficulties of sculpture: a dance movement. An infinite art is required, if it is not to become vulgar or remain frozen in stone. Mademoiselle Claudel has conquered that art."
Embracing one another, the woman adorably placing her head on the man’s shoulder, the couple is moving away, turning round and round in slow motion, voluptuous and chaste. They are nearly lifted off the ground, quasi-aerial, supported by a mysterious force which holds their leaning bodies in balance. They fly away, as if carried by wings. But where are they going, lost in the exaltation of their soul and flesh, so closely united? Is it towards love or towards death? The flesh is young, they palpitate with life, but the drapery which envelops and follows them, and turns round with them, clings like a shroud.
Citation: INTELLECTUALITY AND SEXUALITY:
CAMILLE CLAUDEL, THE FIN DE SIECLE SCULPTRESS by CLAUDINE MITCHELL, University of Leeds, Art History Vol. 12, No. 4, December 1989
Located in a private collection
Explored: Highest position: 388 on Saturday, August 18, 2007
"La Valse" by Camille Claudel
Octave Mirbeau constructed a narrative of lovers’ escape into another time and another space as a response to the apparent release from the law of gravity:
"Mademoiselle Camille Claudel has courageously confronted one of the greatest difficulties of sculpture: a dance movement. An infinite art is required, if it is not to become vulgar or remain frozen in stone. Mademoiselle Claudel has conquered that art."
Embracing one another, the woman adorably placing her head on the man’s shoulder, the couple is moving away, turning round and round in slow motion, voluptuous and chaste. They are nearly lifted off the ground, quasi-aerial, supported by a mysterious force which holds their leaning bodies in balance. They fly away, as if carried by wings. But where are they going, lost in the exaltation of their soul and flesh, so closely united? Is it towards love or towards death? The flesh is young, they palpitate with life, but the drapery which envelops and follows them, and turns round with them, clings like a shroud.
Citation: INTELLECTUALITY AND SEXUALITY:
CAMILLE CLAUDEL, THE FIN DE SIECLE SCULPTRESS by CLAUDINE MITCHELL, University of Leeds, Art History Vol. 12, No. 4, December 1989
Located in a private collection
Explored: Highest position: 388 on Saturday, August 18, 2007