Camille et Paul Claudel, lignes de partage by Marie-Victoire Nantet

Abstract

Reviewed by: Camille et Paul Claudel, lignes de partage by Marie-Victoire Nantet Éric Touya de Marenne Nantet, Marie-Victoire. Camille et Paul Claudel, lignes de partage. Gallimard, 2020. Pp. 238. ISBN 978-2072920516. 19€ (paper). Marie-Victoire Nantet who is the sculptor's great-niece and the writer's granddaughter, skillfully traces the correspondence between the life and creative work of the genius brother and sister. Camille Claudel is remembered though her sculptures exhibited at the Rodin Museum. She is also reminisced through the extraordinary performance of Isabelle Adjani in the eponymous film of 1988. In the movie, her brother appeared indifferent to the distress of his sister as she is placed by force into an asylum in March 1913, a few days after her father's death. [End Page 184] Nantet reminds the reader how the three psychiatrists who examined her shared the same diagnosis: "Délire systématique de persécution basé principalement sur des interprétations et des affabulations" (120). For the elderly parents of the artist, "l'épreuve est au-dessus de leurs forces. […] Chacun à sa façon souffre, s'aveugle et s'enlise dans les contradictions" (150-51). Contrary to what has been alleged in other works, Nantet indicates that Paul visited her sister on several occasions despite the geographic distance that separated them: "En trente ans, Paul lui rend visite douze fois, ce qui paraît peu. C'est oublier qu'il vit la plupart du temps à l'étranger" (154). The final visit occurs a few weeks before she passed away: "Le 21 septembre 1943, Paul Claudel rend une visite à sa sœur à l'agonie dont il revient bouleversé : 'Elle me reconnaît profondément touchée de me voir, et répète sans cesse : mon petit Paul !'" (163). In this profound and moving tribute, Nantet strives to trace the fraternal relationships of two artists who grew up in the Champagne region. We learn the ascendancy Camille exercised over Paul's young years and follow the developments of two violent personalities who will ultimately take divergent paths. The author successfully portrays the colliding forces of two strong characters: Paul, the poet and convert to Catholicism at age eighteen, and Camille, the sculptor, pupil and mistress of Auguste Rodin. Paul likes words; Camille, the earth. Yet, they experience a similar childhood, tormented and unrestrained, as they want to escape the dreary reality of everyday life. Their artistic vocations which were born at the same time brought them together. The book thus interprets how the two tragic lives intersect. In 1905, for exemple, "tous deux sont plus que mal en point, Paul souffre atrocement de la disparition de Rosalie Vetch, son grand amour, Camille lutte contre ses démons intérieurs" (24). For Camille, the meeting in Paris with Rodin fulfilled her life before turning into confrontation and nightmare. Her sculptures convey the sensual and tragic love story she experienced. Nantet reveals through her study the love and distance that existed between two individuals inhabited by genius and the immense suffering that in fact united their lives: "À l'intersection de la vie et de l'oeuvre, le seul recoupement est la plainte exhalée par chacun" (124). On the eve of Camille's internment, Paul writes to Daniel Fontaine: "J'ai tout à fait le tempérament de ma sœur […] et sans la grâce de Dieu, mon histoire aurait été la même ou pire" (67). She analyzes how in texts such as "Camille Claudel, statuaire" (1905), Paul also reveals the proximity that exists between their respective creative works. In Camille's "L'âge mûr" and Paul's Art poétique, the two artists "travaille[nt] à tirer du chaos l'empreinte d'un sens" (87). Sharing similar themes and motifs (i.e. solitude, abandonment), the works of the sculptor and dramatist shed light on one another through a dialogue between sculpture and literature from "L'Implorante" to Partage de midi, and "La Valse" to L'homme et son désir. Through the prism of Camille's last sculpture entitled "La Femme assise," Paul seeks to understand her life in a section of Seigneur, apprenez-nous à prier named "La Séquestrée." Similarly...