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Lot Essay
This drawing will be included in the catalogue raisonné of drawings by Victor Hugo being prepared under the direction of Pierre Georgel.
The present drawing is the result of Hugo's technique of dripping ink and wash on the paper and letting it dry without imposing a shape but letting the ink take its own undefined form, forming rivulets of evanescent effects. On a second stage, he uses the brush to draw a tower at the top of the hill, with stairs that lead to it, trees to the left and an undefined, ghostly shape of a herringbone. On the left, he uses a pochoir to block the ink from dripping to the far edge, creating an irregular shape.
The beauty of this drawing resides in its evanescent, transparent grey-violet and brown wash. The tower seems to emerge in the distance through the mist, giving a sense of unreality to the landscape. The sheet precedes Hugo's 'Tâches' (stains) of the 1850s, where shapes dissolve and the drawings become less literal and the paper is filled with unshaped, blurry stains originated by the unbridled ink.
The present drawing is the result of Hugo's technique of dripping ink and wash on the paper and letting it dry without imposing a shape but letting the ink take its own undefined form, forming rivulets of evanescent effects. On a second stage, he uses the brush to draw a tower at the top of the hill, with stairs that lead to it, trees to the left and an undefined, ghostly shape of a herringbone. On the left, he uses a pochoir to block the ink from dripping to the far edge, creating an irregular shape.
The beauty of this drawing resides in its evanescent, transparent grey-violet and brown wash. The tower seems to emerge in the distance through the mist, giving a sense of unreality to the landscape. The sheet precedes Hugo's 'Tâches' (stains) of the 1850s, where shapes dissolve and the drawings become less literal and the paper is filled with unshaped, blurry stains originated by the unbridled ink.