Shadows of a Hand

This ink wash by Victor Hugo has never ceased to inspire me. Abstract poetry meets psychological realism in these works. I came across it in a book entitled Shadows of a Hand, which is a collection of the great writer's ink drawings. Delecroix once said that if Victor Hugo had been a painter instead of a writer, he would have been the greatest of the Romantic painters.

Hatching from a nameless gleam of light I see
Monstrous flowers and frightening roses
I feel that out of duty I write all these things
That seem, on the lurid, trembling parchment,
To issue sinisterly from the shadow of my hand.
Is it by chance, great senseless breath
Of the Prophets, that you perturb my thoughts?
So where am I being drawn in this nocturnal azure?
Is it sky I see? Am I in command?
Darkness, am I fleeing? Or am I in pursuit?
Everything gives way. At times I do not know if I am
The proud horseman or the fierce horse;
I have the scepter in my hand and the bit in my mouth.
Open up and let me pass, abysses, blue gulf,
Black gulf! Be silent, thunder! God, where are you leading me?
I am the will, but I am the delirium.
Oh, flight into the infinite! Vainly I sometimes say,
Like Jesus calling out “Lamma Sabacthani,”
Is the way still long? Is it finished,
Lord? Will you soon let me sleep?
The Spirit does what it will. I feel the gusting breath
That Elisha felt, that lifted him;
And in the night I hear someone commanding me to go!

VICTOR HUGO

There is only one other work in literature that I have yet come across, which so eloquently and accurately conveys the feeling and act of creation as this poem. Now, being somewhat of a romantic painter myself, I must admit my bias towards this somewhat (melo)dramatic view. But it is simply that I feel that art is about life in its simplicity and complexity; and a life without passion, without vision, without the emphatic would be a dreary life lived. Art, for me, should convey the crest and wake of life’s truly tempestuous nature. However, I digress.


As I’ve said, this passage describes quite perfectly the act of creation, and there is only one other work I know of which evokes the same degree of recognition. There is a collection of short stories entitled: Labyrinths, by Jorge Luis Borges. Among other stories of incredible beauty and depth, is one called: The Circular Ruins, in which the protagonist attempts to dream into existence the life of another man, but through the act of creation comes upon a revelation.


Both are interesting in their similarities: the references to Christ, which makes sense in context of the gospel of John. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…. In him was life; and the life was the light of men.” For the act of creation is a kind of memesis of the first act of creation. Whereby God divided the light from the darkness by means of the Word, or Logos (from Greek meaning literally word, but implying logic and order). So, according to John, the Word and God are one in the same; thus the act of Genesis was the imposition of order upon the chaos of the dark void. The act of creation is in some way a futile grasp at immortality (our nameless gleam amidst the void), for why does man commit image or thought onto a physical object such as paper, stone, or wood? It is the very hope that our creation might speak for us beyond our mortality, that we might carry on in some way, even if only as a memory, a phrase, or an image. This is the sad passion which drives us, for fear - not of death, but of oblivion.