Victor Hugo, Landscape with a castle

The renowned author Victor Hugo produced nearly three thousand drawings, engaging in playful
experiments that pushed the boundaries of the technique. With materials as diverse as coffee dregs, ink and soot, he often elaborated upon chance blots to suggest baroque shapes. He also used stencils, lace and folding to create complex abstract patterns, scraping and manipulating the ink, even with his fingers. In Landscape with a castle he created a stencil and brushed ink over it, to leave the fortress as a white reserve, then added details in pen. The ‘assisted’ accidents of the ink washes and strong contrast of light and dark combine to produce a tempestuous atmosphere. For Hugo, drawings such as this provided a spur to further imaginative invention in graphic and literary form.