Renowned as a poet, novelist, dramatist and critic, Victor Hugo was a figure of legendary proportions whose funeral procession through Paris in 1885 attracted more than 2 million devotees.
The preeminent French Romantic, Hugo also campaigned to alleviate the plight of the poor, to promote civil liberties as well as establish child-labor protection laws.
To celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of this great man, a rare exhibition now showing at the Suntory Museum Tempozan, Osaka, pays homage to his cascade of writings, which began in adolescence. His drawings, accolades, successes and failures are as perishing in weight and abundance as their vision is inspiring. Other tales of Hugo's prodigious powers encompass not only his gourmandizing, but also his colossal appetite for the opposite sex. This, after all, is the man who wrote: "The creaking of a trestle bed, is one of the sounds of paradise."