Victor Hugo, as illustrator
Victor Hugo did not take himself seriously as an illustrator: "For me, it is merely an amusing distraction between stanzas." Some of his drawings are "just scribbles in ink", and yet they bear witness to his capacity for observing people and places. The variety of different techniques he can call upon to express his love of the sea and of travel gives him the creative freedom to sweep us into his dreams by the power of his pen alone.