A new publication from Éditions Diane de Selliers has finally realized Victor Hugo's long-envisioned artistic dream by combining his masterpiece "Les Contemplations" with early photography from 1826 to 1910. This extraordinary book represents the fulfillment of a project the French literary giant had hoped to accomplish during his lifetime, merging his poetic vision with the emerging art of photography.
Victor Hugo, widely regarded as the French man of the century, wrote "Les Contemplations" during his years in exile. Published in 1856, this literary masterpiece chronicles the writer's spiritual and intellectual evolution, which Hugo himself described as "a soul telling its own story." The collection was deeply influenced by the tragic death of his daughter Léopoldine, who drowned at age 19, and explores Hugo's most cherished themes: the celebration of nature and love, reflections on freedom and social justice, and meditations on humanity and divinity, navigating between the soul's suffering and hope.
Hugo demonstrated remarkable foresight in recognizing photography's significance and was fascinated by what he called images "painted by the sun." Though he never practiced photography himself, he had a studio installed in the greenhouse of Marine Terrace, his residence on Jersey from 1852 to 1856. In this productive Jersey studio, his son Charles Hugo and friend Auguste Vacquerie created approximately 350 photographs, documenting their exile experience, family portraits, and the many French exiles who had sought refuge on the island. Some of these landscape photographs inspired Hugo's ink drawings, and the poet often posed for his son's camera, striking dramatic poses facing the sea or standing on the Rock of the Exiles.
The poet's extensive interest in photography is evidenced by the prints preserved in the Maison Victor Hugo collections. He formed friendships with several prominent photographers, including the famous Nadar, and maintained a substantial collection of photographic prints, including a seascape by Gustave Le Gray that appears in this new edition. Julia Margaret Cameron sent him a portfolio containing around thirty of her works, which he treasured alongside his own manuscripts in a special trunk.
Hugo's enthusiasm for combining photography with literature led him to propose several innovative projects to his publisher, Hetzel. He suggested accompanying his political works "Napoléon le Petit" and "Châtiments" with photographs, and envisioned publishing an album about Jersey and the Channel Islands that would unite photographs and poems. While these projects never materialized due to political and financial constraints, they demonstrate Hugo's pioneering vision of merging visual and written art forms in what he saw as a renewed poetic quest.
Existing copies of "Les Contemplations" with photographs inserted between pages provide evidence of Hugo's experimental approach. The Maison Victor Hugo collections preserve a particularly significant copy that belonged to Mrs. Hugo, enhanced with 34 carefully selected photographs. These pairings, likely created under Victor Hugo's supervision, echo the poems either directly or suggestively, expanding the range of literary interpretation through visual imagery.
In her introduction titled "Comme un album" (Like an Album), Florence Naugrette draws compelling parallels between the poetry collection and a photo album. She reveals that each poem in "Les Contemplations" functions as a black-and-white still image, with landscapes, scenes, and characters that evoke mental pictures resembling photographs. Hugo consistently invokes black and white imagery throughout the work: snow, the night sky, doves, marble, and the abyss. Visual elements of blur and sharpness appear in descriptions of mist and foam swirls, brilliant midday light, and winter-whitened paths.
The collection's structure mirrors that of a photo album, tracing the poet's journey through life. Each poem includes a caption with a date and location—deliberately chosen fictional details that Hugo used to mark moments in his intimate journey. Readers leafing through this album of memories follow Hugo's footsteps through his life experiences: memories, loves, devotion to family, losses, struggles, thoughts, doubts, despair, faith, metaphysical searching, and ultimately, hope.
This ambitious edition represents the culmination of three years of intensive research, during which scholars surveyed private and public collections across Europe and the United States, assembling a corpus of several thousand photographs. The volume features works from prestigious institutions including the Musée d'Orsay, the Société Française de Photographie, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and numerous private collections. The book reproduces 120 works by 85 different photographers, each accompanied by biographical information, creating an unprecedented survey of photography's early history.
The final publication, "Les Contemplations de Victor Hugo illustrées par les débuts de la photographie," includes 92 selected poems from Hugo's original work with introductions by Florence Naugrette and Hélène Orain Pascali. The comprehensive volume features 120 photographs created between 1826 and 1910, detailed notes on the poems, biographical profiles of all 85 photographers, and a glossary of photographic techniques. This groundbreaking work, available under ISBN 9782364371491, finally brings to fruition Victor Hugo's visionary concept of uniting poetry and photography in a single artistic endeavor.
