Hugo, Victor

Hugo, Victor (b Besançon, 26 Feb. 1802; d Paris, 22 May 1885).
French poet, novelist, playwright, and draughtsman. As well as being one of the giants of French literature, he was an accomplished and highly prolific draughtsman. His early drawings were fairly conventional, but from the 1840s his style became much more imaginative, free, and emotional, revealing some of the same Romantic spirit as his literary works. Sometimes he used inkblots in a way recalling Cozens and anticipating the automatism of the Surrealists. There are many examples of his drawings in the Maison de Victor Hugo, Paris.