Image description for Gavroche (Les Misérables)

The main description says most of what is going on here; it is a black and white engraving, using thick and thin lines to show shadows. I wish computer screens today could make tactile images so you could feel the lines.

Overall the picture has a feeling of a street scene with poor people. Gavroche’s trousers stop just above his ankles. The boy to his left, and to the viewer’s right, has trousers slightly shorter, with tattered and torn cloth. The woman behind him wears a hat tied with string and a ragged shawl. Gaveroche himself stands on the edge of a pool of light, so that his shirt, his face, and the ground (including his right foot) are lit up brightly; he stands in the centre of the picture, and the brightness and the position make it clear he is the subject of the picture.

back to main image page