Review: Claude & Camille: A Novel of Monet by Stephanie Cowell

When artist Claude Monet sees a young woman in a train station, it’s love at first sight. Fate brings them together and Monet asks the young woman, bourgeoise Camille Doncieux, to be a model for his paintings.  She agrees and the two ultimately fall in love.  She leaves behind her fiance and her family and runs away with Monet. 

I know very little about the personal life of Monet.  Cowell does an outstanding job of relaying this information via Camille and Monet’s contemporaries, including Renoir, Bazille, and Pissaro.  It was enlightening to see the struggle each of these now-famous artists went through to achieve status in the art world. Everyone is familiar with the term “struggling artist.” Cowell portrays just how desperate this struggle was in such a unique and vivid way.

One of the many strong characters in this novel was Monet’s good friend, Bazille.  Bazille had a tremendous impact on Monet’s success, for he served as both a close confidant and a financial supporter of Monet’s work. Without Bazille, Monet had almost nothing.

Camille is another unique and strong character in this novel.  She was the muse for several of Monet’s memorable paintings. Their relationship, while based on love, was constantly ridden with financial struggle.  Her love for him was obvious, but on several occasions I detected a bit of emotional instability on her part.

Monet himself was painted as a sensitive man, extremely dedicated to his passion. He gave up the financial comforts of living with his father to move to Paris to paint. Seeing this side of Monet was tremendously rewarding. Monet was an artistic genius, and seeing his faults and insecurities relayed how “normal” he really was.

The strong characters and the relationship between each of them is without a doubt my favorite aspect of this novel.  As mentioned, I never truly got an inside look at the life of such an important figure in art. Viewing Monet’s life in this aspect was tremendously rewarding, something I am forever grateful for Cowell for presenting.

I highly recommend this book to fans of historical fiction. While the storyline is scattered with bits of history, the relationship between Monet and Camille transforms it into a well-rounded novel. Fans of art and the Impressionist movement would also find great benefit in reading this, as it provides social and emotional background on a very imporant figure in art history.

Please be sure to stop by tomorrow for a guest post by Stephanie Cowell and a chance to win a copy of Claude & Camille: A Novel of Monet.

Check out what others are saying about Claude & Camille (click on the link to view the entire post):

Julie from Booking Mama writes: I thought Ms. Cowell did a wonderful job of creating Claude’s and Camille’s story while also staying true to the known facts about his life. She wrote a very honest story about the man while also including enough juicy tidbits about his relationships to keep the reader interested.

Amy from Passages from the Past writes: Simply stated – Claude & Camille is by far one of the most beautiful books I have ever read! I had little knowledge about Monet prior to reading this, but I know now I will never forget him or Camille and their story nor will I ever look at his paintings the same way again.