WHAT?  Astonishing Things: The Drawings of Victor Hugo 

WHERE?  Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J OBD

WHEN?  Now until 29th June 

WHY GO?  To discover a visionary.  He was a man of immeasurable talent.  Hugo, most memorably known as the author of Les Miserables, was a politician, poet, essayist, playwright AND artist.  It’s the latter talent that is lauded in this surprisingly romantic exhibition that depicts a sentimental side to one of France’s most distinguished political campaigners. 

Hugo modestly claims his drawings were “made in the margins or on the covers of manuscripts during hours of almost unconscious reverie with what remained of the ink in my pen.”

If that is indeed so, he was even more of a genius as they are as intriguing as the stories he wrote.  He had a thing about mystical castles and turbulent seascapes, both captured his imagination when he was exiled in the Channel Islands.  Both are main subjects of drawings on show, many so fragile, they are dimly lit. 

Never publicly exhibited in his lifetime, Hugo shared his artwork with friends and family.  His sketch books on display are an indication of how, while writing, he doodled, mainly as a refuge to amuse himself.

His life was as epic as a ‘Hugo’ story itself and is sensitively summarised from birth to death in 1885 when he was accorded a state funeral in Paris attended by over two million people.

Thankfully his drawings, which he may not have taken seriously have survived for culture lovers today to take seriously.  

Of the 4,000 or so images he created, this tightly curated show of some 70 sketches sheds light on an astonishingly imaginative mind.  

IN THE KNOW  The Avenue Victor-Hugo in Paris is just one of numerous commemorative tributes to Hugo.  In Havana there’s a park named after him, and in the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress, a mosaic , there’s even a crater on planet Mercury sharing his name, but for Brits, the musical, Les Miserables, will always be his legacy and has been performed for more than 30 years in London alone.