Following Hugo décorateur, currently on display at Maison de Victor Hugo, this exhibition explores the links between Victor Hugo and architecture, highlighting how it unfolds throughout his literary and graphic work.
A Romantic writer, accomplished playwright, politically engaged poet, visionary artist, and decorator, Victor Hugo had a special and enduring relationship with architecture, which always inspired him deeply. Churches, cathedrals, and castles fill his notebooks and give meaning to his stories. Like the first half of the 19th century, when literature and architecture were closely intertwined and heritage became a central concern, the poet emerged as a passionate defender of heritage following his famous 1825 plea, “War on the Demolishers.” His best-known work on the subject is, of course, the novel Notre-Dame de Paris, a true aesthetic manifesto published in 1831, in which he develops his distinctive conception of architecture: the cathedral, a magnificent monument, evokes both history and writing. In the famous chapter “This Will Kill That,” the writer draws an analogy between stones and words. Both are building materials: literature is an architecture of words, just as architecture is a writing of history. Architecture also features in other novels, where buildings play an important role in shaping and punctuating the narrative. This interest in architectural motifs also permeates his entire graphic body of work. Castles and keeps, ruins and roads, churches and cathedrals, fortresses and staircases… very early on became the principal imagery in his sketchbooks and drawings. Victor Hugo’s keen powers of observation and imagination unfold through monuments that are real or dreamed, famous or intimate, precise or visionary, immense or tiny, magnificent or modest. This approach also extends to a personal form of architecture at Hauteville House, his home during his exile in Guernesey, where he experimented with a three-dimensional architectural vision.
Price: From 0 to 11 euros.
Source: paris.fr — photo: Maison de Victor Hugo