My Favorite Artworks at Maison de Victor Hugo, Paris

After visiting Balzac's former residence, a trip to Maison de Victor Hugo, Paris was in order and there, in the crazily decorated old flat in a fashionable building with a lovely courtyard in Le Marais district, I was amused by some quite idiosyncratic decorations and odd collections. 

Amongst such clutters, several sculptures, paintings and prints stood out and my two favorites there were a bust of Hugo and a painting depicting the battle between classists and romanticists during the performance of his play, Hernani.

The Victor Hugo, buste héroïque was once again by the great French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917).  This bronze sculpture presented the triangle-shaped bust of a lean and brawny Hugo, without clothes and stripped of his arms, precariously perched on a small marble stand.  Head bent down, he was lost in his own thoughts, not dissimilar to Le Penseur, the most celebrated work by Rodin.


Victor Hugo, buste héroïque, Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), 83 x 56 x 65 cm, 1902 (2), 1908, Bronze (fonte Alexis Rudier)

The painting, Performance of 'Hernani' by Victor Hugo in 1830, aka, The Battle of Hernani, by Paul Albert Besnard was quite virtuosic in depicting an animated crowd scene; if its artistic value was not the most accomplished, it did command viewers' attention and was hard to forget, and that made it a wonderful work. 

Hernani was Hugo's romantic play, during its premiere, in anticipating attacked from the classists, Hugo enlisted the support of fellow romanticists to combat the opposition and indeed the play had caused fights amongst the audience.  It was one of the watershed moment of the course of artistic development.  The painting captured the maniac atmosphere of that significant moment wonderfully. 


Performance of 'Hernani' by Victor Hugo in 1830, Paul Albert Besnard

My Favorite Museum Collection Series
>> My Favorite Museum Collection Series 73: My Favorite Artworks at Musée National Eugène Delacroix, Paris

<< My Favorite Museum Collection Series 71: My Favorite Artworks in La maison de Balzac, Paris

List of My Favorite Artworks in the Museums I've Visited

Other Related posts on Art · 文化 · Kunst:
- My Favorite Paintings at Musée Marmottan Monet
- My Favorite Sculptures at Musée Rodin, Paris
- Revisiting Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena
- My Favorite Paintings from Musée Picasso, Paris
- The Museum of Modern Art, New York City
- My Favorite Sculptures at Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, Paris
- Fifteen Authors Influenced Me Most and Watching Shakespeare in China
- Swiss Author and Dramatist Friedrich Dürrenmatt
- Molotov's Magic Lantern: A Journey In Russian Histoy by Rachel Polonsky and Some Journeys of My Own
- Review of "As Above, So Below" by Rudy Von B. Rucker