Plato on Camille

Blog post for Nov. 10
Going back to Plato's "Ion," discuss the idea of the artist's inspiration as divine madness in relation to "Belly of an Architect," "Artemisia," or "Camille Claudel."


In Plato’s “Ion”, Socrates and Ion are having a conversation about the source of artistic creativity. Socrates attributes the source of artistic creativity to divine unearthly inspiration, which during his time period were linked to the presence of muses.

Ion is an actor whose artistic creativity takes the form of interpretation through acting out dramatic works. He explains that he is especially fond of the works of Homer and finds himself unable to be inspired by much else.

Ion tells Socrates, “I am conscious in my own self and the world agrees with me in thinking that I do speak better and have more to say about Homer than any other man.” (PLATO 54)
Socrates responds, “The gift which you possess of speaking excellently about Homer is not an art, but, an inspiration; there is a divinity moving you like that contained in the stone in which Euripides calls a magnet… the stone not only attracts iron rings but also imparts them to a similar power of attracting other rings.” (PLATO 54)

Taking the reading from Ion into consideration I began to think back to certain scenes in Camille Claudel. The plot of Claudel’s life is tumultuous one, which ends with her being committed to a sanitarium where she eventually dies thirty years later. Camille’s family believed that she was in fact insane and her actions throughout the movie though at times warranted don’t help her to appear as a mentally stable individual.

In the above excerpt from Ion, Socrates tells ion that ALL artistic inspiration is derived from an original divine source physically manifested in a stone in which Euripides calls a magnet.
This reminded me of the metaphor of god as a rock: “the Lord Yahweh is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler and the horn of my salvation and my high tower”. (Psalms 18:2, 30)

August Rodin was a master of sculpture and is perhaps the most famous sculptor of the modern age. Speaking in terms Socrates, he is an inspired artist who serves as a vessel for gods message. Being a vessel, Rodin’s deviant behavior doesn’t diminish his status; his discretions’ are regarded as minor indiscretions’ during his artistic possessions and the finished visual narrative (gods message) is so powerful and moving that it speaks for itself. (Don’t shoot the messenger?)

Camille is extremely talented but knows she needs a powerful mentor in order to be noticed especially because she was a woman. She needs a link to the original stone magnet of divine inspiration. “In like manner the muse first of all inspires men herself; and from these inspired persons a chain of other persons is suspended who take the inspiration. For all good artists compose their beautiful poems not by art but because they are inspired and possessed… (PLATO 54)

Rodin visits Camille in her home and studio and after barely looking over her work she asks him for some some marble; he obliges and she visits his workshop to select a piece to work with. She inspects Rodin’s work and is led into the room to choose her piece, she examines the one she offered which is very extensive and large, however she is drawn to the oddly right triangle shaped piece of very delicate marble. The man thinks she will fail, but Rodin has faith. Why would she choose such a piece…?

There is method to her madness. Socrates might say as he did to Ion:
“There is no invention in her until she has been inspired and is out of her senses, and the mind is no longer in her: when she has not attained to this state, she is powerless and is unable to utter her oracles (PLATO 55 **edited to be feminine she for the her/his )
Not soon after she places a human foot rendered from the marble that rivaled David’s. Which he signs and she regards as a testament to her skill.

Her ability throughout the film is up the par of male sculptors who are slightly disturbed by her work. “She’s a witch”, “She sculpts like a man”; all of these comments insinuate that there must be something wrong with this woman.

In Camille Claudel her madness is Mud Lust. The film openly portrays her collecting mud in the opening scene as deviant, and the eroticized images of her scraping a mound of clay (which is shaped like is meant to be a colossal bust) implies that when she is creating she is in a state of frenzy, overcome by feelings and incarnate desires.

“They are not in their right minds when they are composing heir beautiful strains: but when falling under the power of music and meter they are inspired and possessed… like the Bacchic maidens who draw milk and honey from the rivers when they are under the influence of Dionysus but not when they are in their right mind” (PLATO 55)

Rodin and Camille share this insane "mud-lust" and share a love of filth. He however has a network of people around him so he can literally conceptualize and work while being half inspired and leave his assistance to finish off his work. He even says to Camille that without her it doesn’t make sense… however he functioned before he met her and functions after her.

After she leaves Rodin her life takes a sudden turn downward she is devastated; she feels utterly alone, like a hollow shell: “God takes away the minds of poets and uses them as his ministers, as he also uses diviners and holy prophets, in order that we who hear them may know them to be speaking not of themselves...God himself is the speaker and that he is conversing with us. (PLATO 55)

Without her god, she has nothing to say, or believes what she has to say (what she sculpts) is not worth “saying” (showing). Because of her relationship with Rodin, even when the pair finally completely cut ties, she allows (or at least the film leads the viewer) for Rodin to rule her life. She is constantly paranoid, subsequently her behavior is erratic and she “drinks to make people believe her problem is booze not Rodin”. She destroys her work and isolates herself, and when she is not creating her fits of madness are unwarranted and leads her brother to believe she is mentally ill.

In taking the following passage from “Ion” and applying it to Camille Claudel, we understand her need for Rodin and her dissipation without him.

When Ion asks Socrates why he is so inspired by the work of Homer he asks him, “Are you in your right mind? Are you not carried out of yourself? ….For (it is) not by art or knowledge about Homer (Rodin) do you say what you say, but by divine inspiration and by possession; just as the Corybanthian revelers too have a quick perception of that strain only which is appropriated by God by whom they are posses, and have plenty of dances and words for that… and you Ion (Camille) when the name of Homer (Rodin) is mentioned have plenty to say, and have nothing to say of others. You ask why is this? The answer is that you praise Homer (Rodin) not by art but by divine inspiration (PLATO 57)

Camille praises Rodin. In the scene where she reveals the true reasons why she left him and they are arguing over her work and how it’s all from him… after the huge fight is over Camille cries out “why WHY WHY WHY” . This scene alludes to countless other instance sin art, and in films where the main character looks up at the sky and cries out the rhetorical question “why” to a god that is omnipresent but always absent. Camille is abandoned by her god, he no longer wishes to use her as a vessel and she no longer feels she has a stable foundation artistically or mentally.