Victor Hugo: The Creative Digression

Victor Hugo - The Town of Viandan with Stone Cross

I recently visited a fascinating exhibition of the drawings of Victor Hugo. (‘Astonishing Things’ is at The Royal Academy, London until 29 June, 2025.)

'There is nothing like a dream to create the future.’
Victor Hugo

Hugo was a renowned nineteenth century novelist, the author of ‘The Hunchback of Notre-Dame’ and ‘Les Misérables.’ He was also a poet, playwright and politician. And he was a talented artist.

Working in charcoal, pencil, and pen and ink, Hugo created satirical caricatures to share with friends and family. He also sketched extensively in his travel journals: detailed depictions of landscapes, windmills, cobbled streets and stairwells. A committed Romantic, he was particularly fond of drawing mournful gothic castles and turbulent ocean scenes. Here are spires, towers and turrets, shrouded in mist, looming over the villages beneath. Here are breakwaters, cliffs and causeways; shipwrecks, serpents and storm-tossed seas. 

'Even the darkest night will end, and the sun will rise.’

Hugo’s images could be rather gloomy. A disembodied hand reaches for the sky. A spider weaves its web while a town sleeps in the background. A toxic machineel tree throws a skull-shaped shadow. A mushroom cloud with a mysterious human face rises above the desolate countryside.

 'Those who do not weep do not see.’

Victor Hugo - The Town of Vianden Seen Through a Spider’s Web, 1871

Hugo held strong political views. A royalist in his youth, he became an ardent republican, living in exile on the Channel Islands for nearly 20 years because of his opposition to Napoleon III. He imagined a United States of Europe, campaigned for the abolition of slavery and advocated the preservation of historic architecture.

'Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.’

Hugo was also strongly opposed to the death penalty. After the 1854 execution in Guernsey of a convicted murderer, he made a series of drawings of a hanged man, notably a work he titled ‘Ecce Lex’ (‘behold the law’). A few years later he gave permission for this image to be made into a print protesting against the execution of an American anti-slavery activist. 

Victor Hugo - Octopus, 1866–69

'No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.’

Hugo’s enquiring mind prompted him to conduct seances in the hope of contacting the spirits of the dead. He experimented with inkblots, fingerprints and rubbings; stencils, silhouettes and collage. He redesigned his own home. He collected and signed pebbles, and created pure abstract forms, which he termed ‘caches’ (‘stains’ or ‘accidental marks’). 

Hugo was also interested in unconscious creativity. Deliberately letting his hand move freely over paper, he would draw meandering pencil lines that suggested comical, sinister, outlandish creatures, an imagination running wild. Similar ‘automatic’ processes were adopted by the Surrealists in the 1920s.

'A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is visible labour and there is invisible labour.' 

Though they pursued Romantic themes, Hugo’s drawings rarely had any direct connection to his literary work. I suspect that his sketching was the product of a restless brain, a welcome alternative outlet for his ideas. They were in a sense a Creative Digression, a temporary departure, an opportunity to flex different imaginative muscles.

'Not being heard is no reason for silence.'

I was reminded of Joni Mitchell’s decision periodically to suspend her songwriting in favour of painting. Similarly, the poet Sylvia Plath painted and sketched throughout her life. Such parallel processes can enrich each other.

'An intelligent hell would be better than a stupid paradise.'

Victor Hugo, Taches-Planètes c 1850

 Perhaps anyone working in a creative profession should consider sometimes switching out of their chosen mode and medium, taking a break from the relentless quest for excellence, allowing the mind to run free for a while. We could all benefit from a Creative Digression. 

'Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace.'

'If you kissed the sun right out of the sky for me,
And if you told me all the lies that I deserve,
And if you laid all night in the rain for me,
Well, I couldn't love you more,
Just couldn't love you more,
I couldn't love you more.
And if you loved me 'til my eyes gave no more shine for you,
If you walked beside me all the long way home,
And if you wasted all of your time on me,
Well, I couldn't love you more,
Just couldn't love you more,
I couldn't love you more,
Just couldn't love you more.

And if you gave me all the things I'd never ask of you,
And if you showed me all the ways you have to cry,
And if you laid all night in the rain for me,
I couldn't love you more,
Just couldn't love you more,
Just couldn't love you more.’

John Martyn, ‘Couldn’t Love You More'

No. 518

Shaving in the Dark: No Worker Is an Island

Man Shaving by Thomas Setton

'No man is an island entire of itself; every man 
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.’
John Donne

In the early nineties I decided to focus on my work. I determined to reduce my socialising and increase my industry. I would rise early and return late. I would put my nose to the grindstone and my foot to the floor. 

I was living on my own in a one bedroom flat on Peckham Rye. It had no pictures adorning the magnolia walls, no lampshades to soften the harsh electric light, no curtains to shut out curious eyes. But I had everything I needed for the limited time I planned to spend there: a big floral sofa and a modest TV; a rudimentary hi-fi and a substantial record collection arrayed in cardboard boxes across the floor.

At night I dined on cream crackers and cheese, or takeaway curry washed down with cans of Breaker. I became obsessed with domestic efficiency. In a bid to cut down on washing-up, I took to using paper plates and plastic cutlery. I’m not sure I was too environmentally conscious in those days.

Sometimes, late at night, the number 12 would pause at the junction outside my flat, and the occupants of the top deck would look in on me, isolated and alone with a tray on my lap.

Every day I got up at an ungodly hour to catch that same bus into work. The early bird catches the worm. However, at length I was confronted by my downstairs neighbour, Jerry. My dawn rising had been waking him and his wife, and he wasn’t happy. In particular he found the extractor fan in my bathroom thoroughly irritating.

The offending fan was synchronized with the bathroom light, and it’s fair to say it did make something of an industrial racket. However, rather than getting it fixed, silenced or disconnected, I determined that it would be best to conduct my ablutions on tiptoes without illumination - anything to avoid another awkward encounter with an irate Jerry. After a few attempts it seemed perfectly possible to shower and brush my teeth in the gloom. But shaving in the dark proved particularly challenging.

As I slumped into my seat on the top deck of the number 12, with tissue paper stuck to my wounded neck, I reflected that maybe I was spending too much time on my own.

'A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke.'
Vincent Van Gogh

I read recently about research into longevity carried out by science journalist Marta Zaraska ('Growing Young: How Friendship, Optimism and Kindness Can Help You Live to 100’, featured in The Guardian, 22 June 2020).

Zaraska, having reviewed the many academic papers on the subject, has learned that how long we live is only 20% to 25% determined by our genes. Of course, food and nutrition also play their part in prolonging life - a Mediterranean diet (rich in fruit and vegetables; using olive oil instead of butter) reduces the risk of premature death by 21%. But, significantly, having a large network of friends cuts that risk by 45%. Indeed one study claims that each extra person in one’s social circle lowers the chance of dying within five years by 2%. 

In short, happy sociable extroverts tend to live longer than unhappy antisocial introverts. 

'So many people are shut up tight inside themselves like boxes, yet they would open up, unfolding quite wonderfully, if only you were interested in them.'
Sylvia Plath

The particular importance of sociability in determining longevity is illustrated by the case of Roseto, Pennsylvania. In the early ‘60s the inhabitants of this small district were found to have very low rates of heart disease. Researchers discovered that the population of predominantly Italian immigrants had, since arriving in the States, largely given up their traditional Mediterranean diet. But they had retained their sociable community lifestyle, and this was the critical factor in their superior health. 

As Zaraska observes:

‘Maybe the life-prolonging aspect of the Mediterranean diet is not the amount of vegetables and olive oil it contains, but the way these foods are eaten: together with others.’

I was considering Zaraska’s insights in the light of our recently enforced embrace of Working From Home. 

Many argue that the new model should be sustained beyond lockdown. There’s no doubt that technology now enables more fluid, more efficient work practices. Individuals are rejoicing at the prospect of an end to commuting, to mundane water cooler conversations and tiresome sandwich lunches; at the opportunity for a superior work-life balance. And industry is jumping at the chance of reduced rents.

But businesses may find that they still need some social glue to transfer corporate knowledge and culture, to sustain brand loyalty and coherence. And individuals may yet yearn for physical interaction - to progress their careers, to preserve their sanity, and indeed to prolong their lives. A company is as much a community as it is a means of creating wealth.

'It is important for us to know if we are alone in the dark.'
Stephen Hawking

By the end of the ‘70s, many Rosetans had moved on to more spacious, more remote homes, and were travelling around by car rather than on foot. Sadly, as their sociability diminished, their mortality rate fell into line with the rest of the United States.

I’m pleased to say my own period of solitary confinement was ended - before I went completely off the rails - by the arrival of my now wife.

'Mother I tried please believe me,
I'm doing the best that I can.
I'm ashamed of the things I've been put through,
I'm ashamed of the person I am.
Isolation, isolation, isolation.’
Joy Division, ‘Isolation’ (B Sumner / I Curtis / P Hook / S Morris)

No. 291

Lunch at the Spaghetti House, Holborn: Making Friends with Failure

New York Resturant - Edward Hopper, 1922

'If you want to win at life every time, do not step in the ring.’
Anthony Joshua, on regaining the World Heavyweight Boxing Title

One day in the Autumn of 1991 I took my mother to the British Museum. We wandered around the galleries reflecting on Samurai armour and the Sutton Hoo helmet; pausing in front of Ramesses, reliquaries and the Rosetta Stone. Devout and Irish, she was particularly interested in the Celtic crosses and medieval church statues. I was drawn to anything Classical, and the bearded Assyrian man-beasts. I bought her a few postcards from the shop for the collection she kept in scrapbooks back at Heath Park Road.

Afterwards we adjourned to the Spaghetti House in Holborn. I ordered spaghetti bolognaise and told Mum that it wasn’t as good as the one she made at home – with Heinz tomato soup and mince from the local butchers. We chatted affectionately about Dad, her school and my siblings.

I had decided that this was the beginning of a new chapter in our relationship. I would no longer be the sullen, introverted, taciturn youth. I would be solicitous, attentive, considerate. I would take Mum out to lunch, ask her how she felt. I would be an adult.

The day went very well and, as we parted, I told Mum that next time we could visit the National Gallery together. She was surprised and amused. In her own quiet way.

A few months later she was dead.

I had made a mistake. I had left my initiative too late. I would forever be in her debt, unable to pay back all the love and affection of my childhood. And grief and guilt would cast their long shadows.

According to a recent survey of 2,000 people in the UK (Mortar/ KP), we spend 110 hours a year regretting what might have been - the equivalent of 500 waking days over a lifetime. Eight in ten people believe their lives would be better if they had taken more risks. 57% wish they had taken another job. 23% pine for past loves. 

We all walk hand-in-hand with failure and loss, with regret and remorse. And with every passing year our errors add up and accrue. They become life-companions, ghosts that are ready at any moment to tap us on the shoulder and darken the mood.

'Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.'
Salvador Dali

I was nonetheless heartened to read about another recent study, this time from the journal, Nature Communications (November 2019). Scientists at Brown University, the University of Arizona, UCLA and Princeton conducted a series of machine-learning experiments in which they taught computers simple tasks. 

The computers learned fastest when the difficulty of the problem they were addressing was such that they responded with 85% accuracy. The scientists concluded that we learn best when we are challenged to grasp something just beyond our existing knowledge. When a task is too simple, we don't learn anything new; when a task is too difficult, we fail entirely or just give up.

So learning is optimized when we fail 15% of the time. 

This has a ring of truth about it. In the creative arts practitioners have long been familiar with the concept of learning through misstep and misadventure. Failure illuminates the terrain, suggests new opportunities, and points us on the right path. It confirms that we are pioneering something new. It strengthens our resolve.

'An artist's failures are as valuable as his successes: by misjudging one thing he conforms something else, even if at the time he does not know what that something else is.'
Bridget Riley

'I love my rejection slips. They show me I try.'
Sylvia Plath

Similarly in the world of commerce, entrepreneurs and titans of industry have often celebrated the proving ground of trial and error. 

'I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.’
Thomas Edison

'The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.'
Henry Ford

Indeed the more ambitious a business is to pioneer new categories and sectors, the more it must be prepared to countenance defeat and disappointment. Alphabet’s innovation lab, X, seeks 'radical solutions to huge problems using breakthrough technology.’ X doesn’t just acknowledge the risk of failure; it exalts it:

'If you’re not failing constantly and even foolishly, you’re not pushing hard enough.'

The truth is that failure and how we deal with it define our character. We all look over our shoulders and see a landscape of rash decisions, missed opportunities and wasted time. But, for better or worse, this is our homeland, our mother country. It makes us who we are. 

'Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.'
Truman Capote

I have resolved to be more forgiving of myself and others; to be more comfortable with my past errors of judgement. I plan to make friends with failure. 

So from now on I’m aiming to be wrong 15% of the time. That still gives me a lot to work on. I think Mum would have understood. She’d have been surprised and amused. In her own quiet way.

 'I can't eat, I can't sleep anymore.
Waiting for love to walk through the door.
I wish I didn't miss you anymore.’
Angie Stone, ‘Wish I Didn’t Miss You’ (A Martin / G Mcfadden / J Whitehead / L Huff / I Matias)

No. 276