Campbell Dodgson

“ The British Museum collection is still arranged in Wedmore’s order, which has one practical advantage: it gives precedence to the important works, the etchings of Paris, and describes the other etchings as minor works after these. Thus the visitor, not an expert, who asks for Meryon’s etchings and receives the first volume, finds in it at once a number of the masterpieces. He can persevere, if he will, and see the minor works also; but, if he is more easily tired, he will at least have seen the Paris set while his eye is fresh, and will have spent none of his energy on the early experiments. ”

“ The outline drawing which Meryon made from the level of the shore, showing the towers very much lower, is reproduced in M. Delteil’s catalogue. L’Arche du Pont Notre-Dame (plate 8) , especially in the beautiful proofs on green paper, is one of the most charming of the whole series and free from any eccentricity. La Galerie Notre-Dame (plate 9) is a very beautiful rendering of Gothic architecture, and a most delicate study of effects of light, direct and reflected. The impressions vary much, some being rich in tone and rather veiled, others clean wiped and of a silvery clearness. ”

“ It is only the four oblong subjects of Paris and its vicinity after Zeeman that count for something more, because they show very plainly on what Meryon formed his taste, and anticipate, in the proportions and ordonnance of the plate and in the treatment of river boats and of the little figures on the banks of the Seine that we see in Le Pavillon de Mademoiselle and in La Rivière de Seine et l’angle du Mail, habits that we shall soon come to regard, when we consider the original etchings of Paris, as specially characteristic of Meryon himself. ”

“ LIST OF MERYON’S ETCHINGS
Besides the earliest full catalogue of Meryon’s etchings, that by P. Burty, translated into English by M. B. Huish (1879) , which derives its value from Burty’s Memoir of Meryon and his notes on certain of the etchings, there are two catalogues of Meryon in general use, that written by the late Sir F. Wedmore (“Méryon and Méryon’s Paris,” 2nd ed., London, 1892) and the much more thorough catalogue by M. Loys Delteil (1907) which forms Tome II. of the series, “Le Peintre-Graveur illustré.” ”

“ Bléry as an etcher has little interest for us, but he was sufficiently skilled to impart in six months a sound technique to a pupil, whose interest in the art was fostered by the study of old etchings and especially those of the Dutch etcher of architecture and marine subjects, Renier Zeeman (1623-1663) , which he used to pick up for a few sous in the boxes outside the printsellers’ shops. Meryon’s first etching of all was a head of Christ, founded on a miniature after Philippe de Champaigne; the only impression known of this etching is in the Howard Mansfield collection at New York. ”

“ In drawing architecture Meryon always worked upwards from the bottom of his object, saying that buildings were begun from the foundation and the artist{7} should follow the same method as the builder. In the same way he would draw men from the feet upwards, saying that they must always be planted firmly on their feet before they began to do anything. Le Petit Pont well illustrates another peculiarity of his practice in drawing architecture. ”

“ Charles Baudelaire and Théophile Gautier added their words of praise and the Galerie Notre-Dame evoked the enthusiasm of Victor Hugo. Bracquemond, by twelve years his junior in age but his contemporary in the practice and mastery of etching, gave him all the support of his appreciation, and there was a small enlightened circle of collectors, including Wasset of the War Office, Niel of the Ministry of the Interior, Meryon’s former shipmate De Salicis, the English etcher Seymour Haden, and a few others who saw the great merit of his work{2} from the first. ”

“ The year 1916 was an unfavourable time for acquiring such a valuable œuvre for any national or municipal museum, and the Macgeorge collection went to America and was dispersed, only a small number of proofs remaining in, or returning to, this country, where, I suppose, no one collection of importance still remains except that of the British Museum. A Meryon exhibition is being held at the Museum this autumn to celebrate the centenary of the artist’s birth. ”

“ The proportions of the various masses of architecture to the oblong plate are perfectly satisfying, and the eye delights in the intricate lines, alternately light and dark, of the two wooden structures that rise out of the water like the piles of a “lake dwelling.” Meryon excuses himself, in an interesting letter, for making the towers of Notre-Dame higher than they should be, as actually seen from this point of view: “Les Tours saillent aussi un peu plus que dans la réalité ”

“ The Tomb of Molière (plate 23) , tail-piece to the set, was etched on the same plate, and a proof exists from the undivided copper containing both designs. The verses following the frontispiece are a comment on the latter, and express Meryon’s conviction that the city of Paris, “Paris le Paradis des amours et des Ris,” is possessed by a “noir Diabloton, malicieux, mutin,” fostered by science, and that this “méchant animal, Origine du mal” cannot be exorcised without razing the city to the ground. ”

“ The highly finished drawing which Meryon etched almost in facsimile, only adding clouds in the sky, was in the Macgeorge collection.{14}
La Rue des Mauvais Garçons (plate 10) , which formed the cul-de-lampe or tail-piece of the first livraison of “Eaux-Fortes sur Paris,” has always impressed modern observers as one of the most powerful and impressive of the etchings, fraught with mystery, enigmatic, suggestive of long past tragedies. “Quel mortel habitait,” are the verses etched on the building, “En ce gîte si sombre? ”

“ The delicacy of the work, in fine proofs, is beyond the power of any mechanical process to reproduce. Two pencil studies, formerly in the Macgeorge collection, are very interesting as showing Meryon’s conscientious method of preparation for this plate. He made one very highly finished drawing of all that is seen of the city of Paris down below, reserving blank spaces for the Stryge and for the Tour St. ”

“ A drawing by Meryon of another of the monsters of Notre Dame, a monkey, with a set of verses written beside it, is reproduced in Bouvenne’s “Notes et Souvenirs.” Then follows Le Petit Pont (plate 7) , in which the twin towers of Notre-Dame, beautifully placed on the plate, surmount the long rows of houses on the Quai du Marché Neuf and dominate the whole composition. ”

“ The lonely artist, subject to hallucinations, thinking that Jesuits were watching him in every street, quarrelling with his best friends, who found it impossible to help him, almost starving because he thought it wrong to eat when others were in need, was no longer capable of the concentrated effort that had produced the masterpieces of the first half of the fifties. ”

“ An edition of 600 copies of Delteil’s sixth state was published in L’Artiste in 1858, and it was only after this large edition had been struck off that Meryon made a rather important change in the plate, which appears in the last two states, by making rays of light issue, somewhat unaccountably, from the windows between the high square tower and the first of the round ones. Tourelle de la rue de la Tixéranderie (plate 12) , also etched in 1852, was drawn just before its demolition. ”

“ The street exists no longer.
La Tour de l’Horloge (plate 11) was drawn and etched in 1852 while alterations were in progress which materially altered the appearance of Le Châtelet. This plate has always struck me as being a very straightforward and masterly portrait of a building, but without so much personal expression as Meryon generally contrived to impart to his other etchings. ”

“ He deliberately renounced any competition with the camera of the photographer, and claimed the right to arrange the different parts of what he drew in the manner best calculated to convey a certain impression, while preserving the utmost exactness in the representation of detail in each part. ”

“ During the years 1849-50 he produced a number of copies after Loutherbourg, Salvator Rosa, Karel du Jardin and others, but Zeeman fascinated him above all in the double capacity of an etcher of marines and of views of old Paris, and it was from his style that he learnt most. ”

“ On his return to Toulon he had further lessons in drawing. In 1842 he went to sea again, being gazetted as “enseigne de vaisseau” to the corvette Le Rhin, which cruised about New Zealand, New Caledonia, and the islands of the Pacific. The fruits of these years of travel in Oceania may be seen in a number of etchings which he made in later life (Delteil 63-74) . A multitude of pencil sketches made on his travels re{5}mained in his family’s possession till 1904, when they were given to the British Museum by Mr. Lewis Meryon. ”

“ In a pathetic letter which he addressed in 1854 to the Minister of the Interior, appealing to him for the support which he could not obtain from the public, he announced his intention of producing a set of ten etchings of Bourges, and charging fifteen francs for the set. He actually sold the whole series of his masterpieces, “Eaux-fortes sur Paris,” as a set, for twenty-five or thirty francs. They sold very slowly indeed. ”