New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1888-05-27
PICTURES BY VIC7OR HUGO.
AN EXHIBITION OF CURIOUS PERSONAL IN.
TEREST.

AN Of OOhiOCo IEIioCNAL Ina
TEREST.
FROM REGULAR CORRESPONDENT OF THE rRrRuNEA
Paris, May 8.
The Victor Hugo exhibition is one Of the most
interesting i have ever been to. 1t proves what
Theophile Gautier often declared, that he might
have been as great painter as he was poet. IIs
is even in black and white and with such pater.
ais as common ink of different dilutions, quill
pen used to draw and the feather end to lay on
the LIQUID as brush, great colorist Some OF
the effects are prodigious The public can only
see in the works which he illustrated as he wrote
but q few of the illustrations of each. Senator
Schoelcher, who helped to get up the exmbltlon,
has unlocked the glass cases in which these pre-
cious tones are on view and revealed to me their
hidden contents. There is something of Gustave
Dore in Victor Hugo as a draughtsman But ne
has profundity and an intensity which DORIS
wanted He hears voices which cry from the
depths and sees the beings from whom they pro-
coed. The " de profundis' note runs through MS
pictures lust as much as through his poems He
would have been theatrical decorator Of pro-
digious force and resource. Victor Hugo had not
the sentiment of the maternal side of nature. He
liked what was stormy sublime fatalistic, and
often fantastic One sees how these character
istics attracted him in his drawings of the Eddy
stone lighthouse and of storm which robes tho
Casquets lighthouse to the north Of Guernsey In
baclness. It is all bowling chaos. But the Light.
house manages to stand the tug of war with tho
elements, and in a break in the darkness one sees
ship laboring against wind and tide with good
chance of surmountng her trial. There are many
views of this lighthouse and of lifeboat launches,
and of the rock-bound coast Of Guernsey. The
sense of the horrible was pampered there by the
wild sea which beats below the cliffs on which
Hauteville House stands
When young the gloomy note was strong,
as shown in sketches done in Belgium, in Ger
many, In Switzerland and along the Loire. He
reyelled in old architecture A suggestive series
are the Castles in the Air (ChateauX en- Espagne,
which he fancied ne was owner of when as poor
young man he tOyed at drawing. They are all
imposing and very picturesque Some of his PEN
ell and pen and ink sketches made in tourists
notebook little bits of things, but not for that
less grandose in sentiment. lie aspired to be a
carcaturst, but had not fun enough to excite
laughter However, he did types just as well
and in as few lines as Daumer Generally speak.
| ing. he only caricatured when he was angry, and
his anger was scorchng. 1t was that Of Moses
when he came down from Mount Sinai and found
the children of Israel prostituted in golden calf
Worship. At the time of John Browns execution
| he caricatured in this intense manner Brother
Jonathan. So he did also when Queen Victoria
visited Napoleon III, the typical Englishman with
mouthful of long teeth crying "Nive PEm'
pereurl' -
| OF his talent as joiner and art decorator spec~
mems are shown in a mantel-pec arrangement
in carved and painted wood, in the Chinese STYLE
and in many panels They were executed for the
parlor at Guernsey of Madame Juliette Drouhes
for fifty years his companion, secretary and more
than wife Whenever Victor Hugo wrote any
thing which struck him as weak he dipped
cameps hair brush in the ink bottle and passed IL
over the words he wanted to strike out so utterly
that even the printer should rot know OF inc ae@
gree of weakness to which he could drop T. N'