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In his book, Images, Stone, BC: Thirty Centuries of Northwest Coast Indian Sculpture, Wilson Duff wrote:
Stone is heavy. Stone is tough, unyielding, and everlasting. In the depths of man's mind, stone is associated with wholeness, self, truth, and eternity. When it is chosen as the medium for sculpture, stone's qualities and associations are incorporated as part of the meaning. Conversely, man's most enduring truths seem to demand preservation in stone. (p.16)
It seems that as far back as we look, people have been leaving legacies of stone from Stonehenge on the English moor to the monumental pyramids of the Egyptian desert. Often ancient stones were carved to represent something of importance to the carver, and although modern inhabitants may not always know what the artist's meaning was, we still inherit his legacy.
As civilization moved from the primitive to the more modern, men continued to carve, refining their skills into a fine art. In the late 19th and early 20th century while the women of the Left Bank were redefining women's role in literature and art, Auguste Rodin's protégé, Camille Claudel, was sculpting her own immortality. Camille was exceptionally talented, drawing phrase from her already established male counterparts in an arena they dominated.
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