A weekly Guide column in which we dissect the influences and interpretations of a work of art
Island life …
Victor Hugo completed his novel Les Misérables in the Channel Islands in 1862, where he was in exile from the Napoleonic regime. Less well known is that this time also birthed his experiments with abstract art. Using his writer’s ink and quill pen, he created ominous mushroom clouds of dark wash, klecksographies (the twin ink blots that would later be used in psychological tests by Rorschach) and dentelles (prints using lace) like this one from 1855.
Dark arts …
The great Romantic writer created more than 4,000 private drawings in his lifetime, including illustrations for his books. Many of these favoured vaguely fantastical, gothic stuff: lonely castles on mountain peaks, towns shrouded in mist and, in one memorable work, a towering red-and-white toadstool.
A different time …
Hugo’s abstract creations make him an intriguing precursor of 20th-century modernists. André Breton would later hail Hugo’s interest in chance and image-making in relation to surrealism’s use of automatic writing and the mysteries of the unconscious. Yet Hugo’s work had little in common with abstract painters’ pursuit of pure form.
Kindred spirits …
In the Channel Islands, Hugo and his fellow Parisian expats fell hard for a new vogue for spiritualism. They conducted seances where the likes of Shakespeare and Molière reportedly spoke to the writer.
Phantom threads …
The desire to reveal a hidden reality pulses through his shape-shifting visual creations, too. Using his pen, he emphasised the suggestive areas of his lace prints. Here, numerous staring eyes and open mouths can be found, lurking, in the intricate spider’s web patterns.
Included in Not Without My Ghosts: The Artist As Medium, Drawing Room, SE17, Thu to 1 Nov
