"From a certain point of view, the model is the enemy. You cannot let yourself be drawn along. To follow is to disappear. The artist must decide." Charles Auffret
The great challenge for the artist is to transcribe what he feels. He cannot say it by copying— he has to embody it.
An enormous desire, a thirst, and inner need, the power to draw, to seek to express life.
Never forget the overall rhythm.
You must draw like you sculpt, engaging your model with the light.
Light, Light! Expression! Freedom! Audacity!
What struck me when I saw his sculptures, these figures of men, women, standing, sitting, sometimes leaning one way or the other, is that this modeler has built them around a vertical axis that he clearly always keeps in mind. Yves Bonnefoy
The eyes carrying flames, the rough eyebrows raised to the devil toward the temples, the beard glistening, and the language animated, Charles Auffret does nothing if not ardently. CFM, #41, 1973
I’ve never felt so much tension, so much emotion emanating from someone; his gaze seems to penetrate to the very depths of the beings and things that surround him. Richard Peduzzi
Through his appetite for truth, his taste for free and full forms, and even his choice of themes, he is directly connected to the school of modern sculpture that comes out of Degas and Despiau. Patrice Dubois
