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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.
L'aigle noir epitomizes Victor Hugo's continuous search for new ways of artistic expression and his relentless taste for experimentation. The eagle-shaped drawing is obtained by silhouetting, that is cutting along the contours, of a stylized eagle that he has then colored with a dark black ink. The sheet is generally dated around 1855 because the remainder of the paper, from which this drawing was silhouetted, was used for yet another composition (fig. 1) whose drawing technique, associating blue wash to lace tracing, is typical of his work of the 1850s (Musée Victor Hugo, Paris, inv. no. 335; Du chaos dans le pinceau, op. cit., p. 152, no. 121).
The idea behind both drawings has often considered to be heraldry, the bicephalous eagle of the Christian Roman empire, which Hugo might have seen and been inspired from (Du chaos, op. cit.). His way of proceeding, playing with the paper and its reserve, using stencils and cut-outs, is related to Hugo's interest in photography and the possibilities given by the positive and the negative of the photographic practice. The shape of the bird almost anticipates Pablo Picasso's Cubist style: the body seems in fact to be seen at the same time in profile and from the rear, bringing together two different views of the bird.
Like Bateaux dans la brume (see lot 153), the present drawing belonged to Paul Meurice, a friend of Hugo.
(fig. 1) Victor Hugo, Study of an eagle. Musée Victor Hugo, Paris.
L'aigle noir epitomizes Victor Hugo's continuous search for new ways of artistic expression and his relentless taste for experimentation. The eagle-shaped drawing is obtained by silhouetting, that is cutting along the contours, of a stylized eagle that he has then colored with a dark black ink. The sheet is generally dated around 1855 because the remainder of the paper, from which this drawing was silhouetted, was used for yet another composition (fig. 1) whose drawing technique, associating blue wash to lace tracing, is typical of his work of the 1850s (Musée Victor Hugo, Paris, inv. no. 335; Du chaos dans le pinceau, op. cit., p. 152, no. 121).
The idea behind both drawings has often considered to be heraldry, the bicephalous eagle of the Christian Roman empire, which Hugo might have seen and been inspired from (Du chaos, op. cit.). His way of proceeding, playing with the paper and its reserve, using stencils and cut-outs, is related to Hugo's interest in photography and the possibilities given by the positive and the negative of the photographic practice. The shape of the bird almost anticipates Pablo Picasso's Cubist style: the body seems in fact to be seen at the same time in profile and from the rear, bringing together two different views of the bird.
Like Bateaux dans la brume (see lot 153), the present drawing belonged to Paul Meurice, a friend of Hugo.
(fig. 1) Victor Hugo, Study of an eagle. Musée Victor Hugo, Paris.