I first photographed this mesmerizing statue sometime in the mid s with a film camera. The main difference between these two pictures and the earlier one is that in the latter the girl is holding a flower in her hand. In the heart of the old town stands a teenage girl with a thin silhouette. The delicate young girl who stands naked on Place du Bourg-de-Four is one of the most popular Geneva statues. Harmonious forms of adolescence. He aims to capture this transitional moment between childhood and adulthood.
According to him, this is the period of age when young girls have the purest forms. A long limbed figure somewhere between energy and weakness. The teenager, with delicate curves and natural calm, amazingly combines energy and weakness: while her body measures more than a meter eighty, it seems to threaten to collapse due to its leanness.
This extreme refinement of the body, proposed in several statues of the artist, is difficult to perform technically, for it is less voluminous than statues of more classical proportions. A statue that denounces injustice. Many have become attached to this statue, which has come to symbolize issues related to female exploitation and child maltreatment. From the lake edge, take yourself up to Place Bourg de Four in the old town.
Prepare to have your heart-strings pulled! She is a symbol of solidarity for women and girls β especially those forced into prostitution β all over the world: the reason why there are often floral tributes strewn at her feet. Clementine is overpoweringly sad and beautiful in her budding adolescence.
She is unspeakably delicate and stands fully and unashamedly naked. She is quiet but her vulnerability screams out. You can only weep for her innocence that has been or is soon to be brutalised. And Schwarz has evoked all this in bronze!
