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 — now the subject of a new exhibition in London.
“Astonishing Things: The Drawings of Victor Hugo,” which opened at the Royal Academy of Arts on Friday, 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.”
Photo: AP
“Hugo’s ink and wash visions of imaginary castles, monsters and seascapes are as poetic as his writing,” the Royal Academy of Arts said. “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.
The works, many made of ink washes, graphite pencil and charcoal, are “rarely on public display and were last seen in the UK over 50 years ago,” the academy said.
The exhibition of about 70 drawings seeks to address the relationship between Hugo’s artistic and literary work.
Most were made between 1850 and 1870, the period he was exiled to the island of Guernsey following a coup d’etat in December 1851 by Napoleon III.
It was while in exile that Hugo completed some of his major works, including Les Chatiments (The Castigations) and Les Miserables. The exhibition tracks his progress from early caricatures and travel drawings to dramatic landscapes and his experiments with abstraction.
While his writings were deeply rooted in reality and tackled subjects such as social deprivation and the death penalty, certain drawings are more enigmatic, such as Mushroom, which depicts a giant anthropomorphic toadstool.
However the influence of his political beliefs can be seen in Ecce Lex (Behold the Law), which shows a hanged man.
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
RSS