Victor Hugo, painter?


I had no idea that he was skilled at more than writing novels, but apparently his drawings and paintings were quite good. This one is magnificent!

It’s titled “Pieuvre avec les initiales V.H.”, so I guess it’s a kind of self-portrait. Good looking fellow. It’s a good thing I have no talent, because if I did something similar, it would be something out of a nightmare, and you’d all go mad when I showed it.

Comments

  1. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    I think you mean Romantic poetry.

    The existence of French language romantic poetry far predates Hugo.

  2. mrcharlie says

    Well nice as I think it is, I think you’re revealing a personal tentacle bias. ;-)

    Personally I’m glad you’re not trying to depict your dreams of Cthulu, the cute little octopi at the aquarium wouldn’t be so friendly-looking anymore!

  3. keithwerner says

    PZ, an artistic self-portrait of you would drive everyone who saw it insane? That would be awesome!! Someone must write a short story on this pronto.

  4. rq says

    Quite a few famous authors are also fantastic illustrators, they just happen to get famous for the writing, not the drawing. But I’m always awesomely surprised when another one turns up (fortunately, I already knew about Hugo – but that octopus is still gorgeous).

  5. horrabin says

    I don’t know if you’d really call him a fan of the octopus, though.

    “A glutinous mass, endowed with a malignant will, what can be more horrible?”

    “It has an aspect like gangrened or scabrous flesh. It is a monstrous embodiment of disease.”

    As Aziraphale noted “Toilers of the Sea” has a battle with an octopus, Hugo passes on the then-current folk wisdom that the suckers work like hundreds of little mouths, exsanguinating the hapless victim.
    http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32338/32338-h/32338-h.htm#Page_296
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/odisea2008/5578834861/sizes/m/in/photostream/

  6. says

    Strange beauty, eight-limbed and eight-handed,
    Whence camest to dazzle our eyes?
    With thy bosom bespangled and banded
    With the hues of the seas and the skies?–A. C. Hilton

  7. vereverum says

    …if I did something similar…

    The tentacle just left of center curls at the top to form a recumbent P. Just above that the tentacle forms a Z complete with a slash across the diagonal. The M is formed by the two tentacles in the lower right.
    Coincidence?

  8. Lady Mondegreen says

    PZ, an artistic self-portrait of you would drive everyone who saw it insane? That would be awesome!! Someone must write a short story on this pronto.

    It would be like The King in Yellow, except with a picture instead of a play.

  9. Trebuchet says

    Hugo wrote, somewhere or other, “to be eaten alive is more than terrible; but to be drunk alive is inexpressible!” I remember the quote from Cousteau’s “The Silent World”. After encountering actual octopuses, he decided that “drunk alive” was probably a better description of the author than of the dining habits of cephalopods.