Séverin Faust (December 29, 1872,

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

– April 23, 1945), better known by his pseudonym Camille Mauclair, was a French poet, novelist, biographer, travel writer, and

art critic An art critic is a person who is specialized in analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating art. Their written critiques or reviews contribute to art criticism and they are published in newspapers, magazines, books, exhibition brochures, and catalogue ...

Background

Mauclair was a great admirer of

Stéphane Mallarmé Stéphane Mallarmé ( , ; 18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898), pen name of Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of ...

, to whom he dedicated several works, and of

Maurice Maeterlinck Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck (29 August 1862 – 6 May 1949), also known as Count (or Comte) Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who was Flemish but wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in ...

. He was initially a

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

and

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others aspire to ...

. His poetry attracted some attention and was set to music by

Ernest Bloch Ernest Bloch (July 24, 1880 – July 15, 1959) was a Swiss-born American composer. Bloch was a preeminent artist in his day, and left a lasting legacy. He is recognized as one of the greatest Swiss composers in history. As well as producing music ...

Gustave Charpentier Gustave Charpentier (; 25 June 1860 – 18 February 1956) was a French composer, best known for his opera ''Louise''.Langham Smith R., "Gustave Charpentier", ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera.'' Macmillan, London and New York, 1997. Life and ca ...

, and

Ernest Chausson Amédée-Ernest Chausson (; 20 January 1855 – 10 June 1899) was a French Romantic composer who died just as his career was beginning to flourish. Life Born in Paris into an affluent bourgeois family, Chausson was the sole surviving child of a ...

and

Nadia Boulanger Juliette Nadia Boulanger (; 16 September 188722 October 1979) was a French music teacher and conductor. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century, and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organist. From a ...

. His best-known novel is '' Le Soleil des morts'' (1898), a ''

roman à clef ''Roman à clef'' (, anglicised as ), French for ''novel with a key'', is a novel about real-life events that is overlaid with a façade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people, and the "key" is the relationship ...

'' containing fictionalized portraits of leading avant-garde writers, artists, and musicians of the 1890s, which has been recognized as an important historical document of the '' fin de siècle''. He also wrote several non-fiction books about music including ''Schumann'' (1906), ''The Religion of Music'' (1909), ''The History of European Music from 1850-1914'' (1914) and ''The Heroes of the Orchestra'' (1921) which contributed greatly to French awareness of musical trends in turn-of-the-century Paris. As art critic at the ''

Mercure de France The was originally a French gazette and literary magazine first published in the 17th century, but after several incarnations has evolved as a publisher, and is now part of the Éditions Gallimard publishing group. The gazette was published f ...

'', he attacked artists such as

Paul Gauguin Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (, ; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetist style that were distinct fr ...

and

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Comte Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa (24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901) was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, caricaturist and illustrator whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of Paris in the ...

, though he expressed his admiration when their work became accepted. Later in life he wrote mainly nonfiction, including travel writing such as ''Normandy'' (1939), biographies of writers, artists, and musicians, and art criticism. In his art criticism, he supported

impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating ...

and

symbolism Symbolism or symbolist may refer to: Arts * Symbolism (arts), a 19th-century movement rejecting Realism ** Symbolist movement in Romania, symbolist literature and visual arts in Romania during the late 19th and early 20th centuries ** Russian sy ...

, but disdained

Fauvism Fauvism /ˈfoʊvɪzm̩/ is the style of ''les Fauves'' (French language, French for "the wild beasts"), a group of early 20th-century modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the Representation (arts), repr ...

, writing of the style that "a pot of paint has been flung in the face of the public". He also provided the libretto for

Antoine Mariotte Antoine Mariotte (22 December 187530 November 1944) was a French composer, conductor and music administrator. Biography Mariotte was born in Avignon (Vaucluse) in 1875. After studies at the School of Saint-Michel in Saint-Étienne, he enter ...

's 3-act 'conte lyrique' ''Nele Dooryn'', premiered at the

Opéra-Comique The Opéra-Comique is a Paris opera company which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with – and for a time took the name of – its chief rival, the Comédie-Italienne ...

in 1940. At the end of his life, he collaborated with the

Vichy France Vichy France (french: Régime de Vichy; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was the fascist French state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. Officially independent, but with half of its ter ...

-regime, and worked for the ''Grand Magazine illustré de la Race : Revivre''. He was also a cofounder of the

Théâtre de l'Œuvre The Théâtre de l'Œuvre is a Paris theatre on the Right Bank, located at 3, Cité Monthiers, entrance 55, rue de Clichy, in the 9° arrondissement. It is commonly conflated and confused with the late-nineteenth-century theater company named Th� ...

with

Lugné-Poe Aurélien-Marie Lugné (27 December 1869 19 June 1940), known by his stage and pen name Lugné-Poe, was a French actor, theatre director, and scenic designer. He founded the landmark Paris theatre company, the Théâtre de l'Œuvre, which produced ...

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mauclair, Camille 1872 births 1945 deaths Writers from Paris French poets 19th-century French novelists 20th-century French novelists French travel writers French art critics French male poets French male novelists 19th-century French male writers 20th-century French male writers French male non-fiction writers French collaborators with Nazi Germany