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Lot Essay
Pendant l'exil de Victor Hugo à Jersey, Auguste Vacquerie, fidèle ami, crée avec l'écrivain et ses fils Charles et François-Victor l'atelier Hugo-Vacquerie pour diffuser en France l'image du poète absent et garder le souvenir des proscrits. Dans cet univers insulaire, l'exil devient aussi un temps d'expérimentation. Hugo suscite et dirige souvent les prises de vue. Les quelques 350 photographies réalisées entre 1852 et 1855 — principalement des portraits de la famille Hugo et de son entourage, des vues de leurs lieux de vie, notamment Hauteville House et Marine Terrace, des paysages de l'île, ainsi que de nombreux autoportraits de Vacquerie — sont isolées, montées en albums ou insérées dans les éditions originales des Contemplations de Hugo et des Profils et grimaces de Vacquerie, parus en 1856. L'Autoportrait les yeux clos, contre un talus apparaît notamment dans un album de 43 photographies conservé à la Bibliothèque nationale de France.
L'image semble glisser vers l'univers des rêveries hugoliennes. Chez l'écrivain, le rêve éveillé est une porte entrouverte sur l'invisible : un état suspendu où l'esprit s'ouvre aux « souffles inconnus » à l'infini et où, dans le silence du songe, naissent les images.
Cette photographie, d'une profonde sensibilité romantique, montre Vacquerie en cadrage rapproché, le visage abandonné et les paupières fermées, dans une posture qui évoque aussi bien le sommeil que la mort. Elle rappelle l'univers pictural de Gustave Courbet, et plus particulièrement L'Homme blessé (1844-1854, Paris, Musée d'Orsay).
During Victor Hugo’s exile on Jersey, Auguste Vacquerie, his devoted friend, joined the writer and his sons, Charles Hugo and Victor Hugo, in establishing the Hugo-Vacquerie studio to circulate the image of the absent poet in France and preserve the memory of the exiles. Within this insular world, exile also became a time of experimentation. Hugo often conceived and directed the photographs. The approximately 350 photographs produced between 1852 and 1855, consisting primarily of portraits of the Hugo family and their circle, views of their homes, notably Hauteville House and Marine Terrace, landscapes of the island, and numerous self-portraits by Vacquerie, were issued individually, assembled into albums, or inserted into the first editions of Hugo’s Les Contemplations and Vacquerie’s Profils et grimaces, both published in 1856. Self-Portrait with Eyes Closed, Against an Embankment appears in particular in an album of forty-three photographs preserved at the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
The image seems to drift into the realm of Hugo’s reveries. For the writer, the waking dream was a doorway slightly ajar to the invisible: a suspended state in which the mind opens itself to “unknown breaths” stretching toward infinity, and where, in the silence of dreaming, images are born.
This photograph, imbued with profound Romantic sensitivity, depicts Vacquerie in close-up, his face relaxed and his eyelids closed, in a pose that evokes both sleep and death. It recalls the pictorial world of Gustave Courbet, and more specifically L’Homme blessé (1844–1854, Paris, Musée d’Orsay).
L'image semble glisser vers l'univers des rêveries hugoliennes. Chez l'écrivain, le rêve éveillé est une porte entrouverte sur l'invisible : un état suspendu où l'esprit s'ouvre aux « souffles inconnus » à l'infini et où, dans le silence du songe, naissent les images.
Cette photographie, d'une profonde sensibilité romantique, montre Vacquerie en cadrage rapproché, le visage abandonné et les paupières fermées, dans une posture qui évoque aussi bien le sommeil que la mort. Elle rappelle l'univers pictural de Gustave Courbet, et plus particulièrement L'Homme blessé (1844-1854, Paris, Musée d'Orsay).
During Victor Hugo’s exile on Jersey, Auguste Vacquerie, his devoted friend, joined the writer and his sons, Charles Hugo and Victor Hugo, in establishing the Hugo-Vacquerie studio to circulate the image of the absent poet in France and preserve the memory of the exiles. Within this insular world, exile also became a time of experimentation. Hugo often conceived and directed the photographs. The approximately 350 photographs produced between 1852 and 1855, consisting primarily of portraits of the Hugo family and their circle, views of their homes, notably Hauteville House and Marine Terrace, landscapes of the island, and numerous self-portraits by Vacquerie, were issued individually, assembled into albums, or inserted into the first editions of Hugo’s Les Contemplations and Vacquerie’s Profils et grimaces, both published in 1856. Self-Portrait with Eyes Closed, Against an Embankment appears in particular in an album of forty-three photographs preserved at the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
The image seems to drift into the realm of Hugo’s reveries. For the writer, the waking dream was a doorway slightly ajar to the invisible: a suspended state in which the mind opens itself to “unknown breaths” stretching toward infinity, and where, in the silence of dreaming, images are born.
This photograph, imbued with profound Romantic sensitivity, depicts Vacquerie in close-up, his face relaxed and his eyelids closed, in a pose that evokes both sleep and death. It recalls the pictorial world of Gustave Courbet, and more specifically L’Homme blessé (1844–1854, Paris, Musée d’Orsay).