Les Miserables author Victor Hugo’s drawings, ‘as poetic as his writing’, shown in London
Astonishing Things: The Drawings of Victor Hugo highlights the famous French writer’s love of drawing in a show of 70 of his illustrations
French writer Victor Hugo is famous for penning The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and Les Miserables, but less known is his work as an illustrator – the subject of a new exhibition in London.
“Astonishing Things: The Drawings of Victor Hugo”, at the Royal Academy of Arts, traces Hugo’s passion for illustration, 140 years after his death.
The exhibition’s notes say that while the Romantic author and politician came to be a leading public figure in France in the 19th century, “in private, his refuge was drawing”.
“Hugo’s ink and wash visions of imaginary castles, monsters and seascapes are as poetic as his writing,” says the Royal Academy of Arts.
“His works inspired Romantic and Symbolist poets, and many artists including the Surrealists. Vincent van Gogh compared them to ‘astonishing things’.”
For a long time, Hugo showed his drawings only to close friends, even though he ensured their posterity by donating them to France’s national library.