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MERYON, CHARLES (1821-1868)

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Originally appearing in Volume V18, Page 177 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MERYON, See also:CHARLES (1821-1868) , See also:French etcher, was See also:born in See also:Paris in 1821. His See also:father was an See also:English physician, his See also:mother a French dancer. It was to his mother's care that Meryon's childhood was confided. But she died when he was still See also:young, and Meryon entered the French See also:navy, and in the corvette " Le Rhin made the voyage See also:round the See also:world: He-was already a draughtsman, for on the See also:coast of New See also:Zealand he made See also:pencil drawings which he was able to employ, years afterwards, as studies for etchings of the landscape of those regions, The See also:artistic See also:instinct See also:developed, and, while he was yet a See also:lieutenant; Meryon See also:left the Navy. Finding that he was See also:colour-See also:blind, he determined to devote himself to See also:etching. He entered the See also:work See also:room of one Blery, from whom he learnt something of technical matters, and to whom he always remained grateful. Meryon was by this See also:time poor. It is understood that he might have had assistance from his kindred, but he was too proud to ask it. And thus he was reduced to the need of executing for the See also:sake of daily See also:bread much work that was See also:mechanical and irksome. Among learners' work, done for his own See also:advantage, are to be counted some studies after the Dutch etchers such as Zeeman and See also:Adrian See also:van de Velde. Having proved himself - a surprising copyist, he proceeded to labour of his own, and began that See also:series of etchings which are the greatest embodiments of his greatest conceptions—the series called " Eaux-fortes sur Paris." These plates, executed from r85o to 1854, are never to-be met with as a set; they were never expressly published as a set. But they none the less constituted in Meryon's mind an harmonious series.

Besides the twenty-two etchings " sur Paris," characterized below, Meryon did seventy-two etchings of one sort and another —ninety-four in all being catalogued in See also:

Wedmore's Meryon and Meryon's Paris; but these include the See also:works ofhis apprentice-See also:ship and of his decline, adroit copies in which his best success was in the sinking of his own individuality, and more or less dull portraits. Yet among the seventy-two prints outside his professed series there are at least -a dozen that will aid his fame. Three or four beautiful etchings of Paris do not belong to - the series at all. Two or three etchings, again, are devoted to the See also:illustration of See also:Bourges, a See also:city in which the old wooden houses were as attractive to him for their own sakes as were the See also:stone-built monuments of Paris. But generally it was when Paris engaged him that he succeeded the most. He would have done more work, however—though he could hardly have done better work—if the material difficulties of his See also:life had not pressedupon him and shortened his days. He was a See also:bachelor, unhappy "in love, and yet, it is related, almost as constantly occupied with love as with work. The See also:depth of his See also:imagination and the surprising mastery which he achieved almost from the beginning in the technicalities of his See also:craft were appreciated only by a few artists, critics and connoisseurs, and he could not sell his etchings, or could sell them only for about See also:rod. apiece. Disappointment told upon him, and, frugal as was his way of life, poverty must have affected him. He became subject to hallucinations. Enemies, he said, waited for him at the corners of the streets; his few See also:friends robbed him or owed him that which they would never pay. A few years after the completion of his Paris series he was lodged in the madhouse of Charenton.

Its See also:

order and care restored him for a while to See also:health, and he came out and did a little more work, but at bottom he was exhausted. In 1867 he returned to his See also:asylum, and died there in 1868. In the See also:middle years of his life, just before he was placed under confinement, he was much associated with See also:Bracquemond and with Flameng,—skilled practitioners of etching, while he was himself an undeniable See also:genius—and the best of the portraits we have of him is that one by Bracquemond under which the sitter wrote that it represented " the sombre Meryon with the See also:grotesque visage." There are twenty-two pieces in the Eaux-fortes sur Paris. Some of them are insignificant. That is because ten out of the twenty-two were destined as headpiece, tailpiece, or See also:running commentary on some more important See also:plate. But each has its value, and certain of the smaller pieces throw See also:great See also:light on the aim of the entire set. Thus, one little plate—not a picture at all —is devoted to the See also:record of verses made by Meryon, the purpose of which is to lament the life of Paris. The misery and poverty of the See also:town Meryon had to illustrate, as well as its splendour. The See also:art of Meryon is completely misconceived when his etchings are spoken of as views of Paris. They are often " views," but they are so just so far as is compatible with their being likewise the visions of a poet and the compositions of an artist. It was an epic of Paris that Meryon determined to make, coloured strongly by his See also:personal sentiment, and affected here and there by the occurrences of the moment—in more than one See also:case, for instance, he hurried with particular See also:affection to etch his impression of some old-world See also:building which was on the point of destruction. Nearly every etching in the series is an instance of technical skill, but even the 'technical skill is exercised most happily in those etchings which have the advantage of impressive subjects, and which the See also:collector willingly cherishes for their mysterious suggestiveness or for their pure beauty.

Of these, the Abside de Notre See also:

Dame is the See also:general favourite; it is See also:corn monly held to be Meryon's masterpiece. Light and shade See also:play wonderfully over the great fabric of the See also:church, seen over the spaces of the See also:river. As a draughtsman of See also:architecture, Meryon was See also:complete; his sympathy with its various styles was broad, and his work on its various styles unbiased and of equal perfection—a point in which it is curious to contrast him with See also:Turner, who, in See also:drawing See also:Gothic, often See also:drew it with want of appreciation. It is evident that architecture must enter largely into any See also:representation of a city, however much such representation may be a See also:vision, and however little a See also:chronicle. Besides, the architectural portion even • of ' Meryon's labour is but indirectly imaginative; to the imagination he has given freer play in his dealings with the figure, whether the See also:people of the See also:street or of the river or the people who, when he is most frankly or even wildly symbolical, See also:crowd the See also:sky. Generally speaking, his figures are, as regards draughtsmanship, " landscape-painter's figures." They are See also:drawn more with an See also:eye to See also:grace than to See also:academic correctness. But they are not " landscape-painter's figures " at all when what we are 'concerned with is not the method of their representation but the purpose of their introduction. They are seen then to be in exceptional See also:accord with the sentiment of the See also:scene. Sometimes, as in the case of La Morgue, it is they who tell the See also:story of the picture. Sometimes, as in the case of La See also:Rue See also:des Mauvais Garcons—with the two passing See also:women See also:bent together in See also:secret converse—they at least suggest it. And sometimes, as in L'Arche du See also:Pont Notre Dame, it is their expressive gesture and eager See also:action that give vitality and animation to the scene. Dealing perfectly with architecture, and perfectly, as far as concerned his See also:peculiar purpose, with humanity in his art, Meryon was little called upon by the See also:character of his subjects to See also:deal with Nature.

He drew trees but badly, never representing foliage happily, either in detail or in See also:

mass. But to render the characteristics of the city, it was necessary that he should know how to portray a certain See also:kind of See also:water—river-water, mostly sluggish—and a certain kind of sky—the See also:grey obscured and See also:lower sky that broods over a world of roof and 'See also:chimney. This water and this sky Meryon is thoroughly See also:master of; he notes with observant affection their changes in all See also:lights. Meryon's excellent draughtsmanship, and his keen appreciation of light, shade and See also:tone, were, of course, See also:helps to his becoming a great etcher. But a living authority, himself an eminent etcher, and admiring Meryon thoroughly, has called Meryon by preference a great See also:original engraver—so little of Meryon's work accords with See also:Sir See also:Seymour See also:Haden's view of etching. Meryon was anything but a brilliant sketcher; and, if an artist's success in etching is to be gauged chiefly by the rapidity with which he records an impression, Meryon's success was not great. There can be no doubt that his work was laborious and deliberate, instead of See also:swift and impulsive, and that of some other virtues of the etcher—" selection " and " See also:abstraction " as See also:Hamerton has defined them—he shows small trace. But a genius like Meryon is a See also:law unto himself, or rather in his practice of his art he makes the See also:laws by which that art and he are to be judged. It is See also:worth while to See also:note the extraordinary enhancement in the value of Meryon's prints. Probably of no other artist of genius, not even of See also:Whistler, could there be cited within the same See also:period a rise in prices of at all the same proportion. Thus the first See also:state of the ` Stryge "—that " with the verses,"—selling under 'the See also:hammer in 1873 for £5, sold again under the hammer in 1905 for boo. The first state of the " Galerie de Notre Dame," selling in 1873 for £5, and at M.

Wasset's See also:

sale in 188o for £1 1, fetched in 1905, £52. A " Tour de 1'horloge," which two or three years after it was 'first issued sold for See also:half a See also:crown, in May 1903 fetched 70. A first state (Wedmore's, not of course M. Delteil's " first state," which, like nearly all his first states, is in fact a trial See also:proof) of the " See also:Saint See also:Etienne du mont," realizing about £2 at M. Burty's sale in 1876, realized £6o at a sale in May 1906. The second state of the " Morgue " (Wedmore) sold in 1905 for £65; and Wedmore's second of the " Abside," which used to sell throughout the 'seventies for £ or £5, reached in See also:November 1906 more than £200. At no period have even Dtirers or Rembrandts risen so swiftly and steadily.

End of Article: MERYON, CHARLES (1821-1868)

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