Victor Hugo, « Ma Destinée », 1867, plume et lavis d’encre brune, gouache sur papier vélin, 17,4 x 25,9 cm. Paris, Maison de Victor Hugo. © photo Roger-Viollet

LAUSANNE Fondation de l’Hermitage presents Victor Hugo - Visionary Drawings, on view through May 18, 2008. Bringing together an outstanding ensemble of around 90 drawings, the exhibition at the Fondation de l’Hermitage highlights Victor Hugo’s surprisingly modern graphic art; not content with being the author of one of the richest literary works of the 19th century, the romantic genius (1802-1885) also drew incessantly throughout his exceptional life.

The presentation focuses on all the draughtsman’s facets ranging from his first caricatures as a schoolboy to those he made later on at the Assemblée Nationale, to his travel diary illustrations as well as his architectural sketches, with special emphasis on more ‘finished’, mysterious and tormented drawings that reveal his visionary genius. His activity in this field reached its inspirational climax from 1852 to 1870 when he was compelled to live as an exile in the Channel Islands (Jersey and Guernsey) surrounded by the sea and its changing moods. For most of his work he used ink wash which he splashed and spread across the paper never hesitating to elaborate on any accidental effects, blots, folds, runs, fingerprints and collages. The exhibition shows how Victor Hugo’s experimental approach to the sheet of paper was way ahead of the times. His inventive use of a wide variety of techniques and materials and his free artistic expression earned him the admiration of artists of the early 20th-century avant-garde movements — from Cubism to Surrealism.

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