Page:The Etchings of Charles Meryon.djvu/18

THE EARLY ETCHINGS 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. 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. While still with Bléry his mind is said to have been slightly unhinged by an unfortunate love affair with the daughter of a restaurant keeper, who would have nothing to say to him. In solitary wanderings about the old streets of Paris and meditations in his garret in the Rue St. Etienne-du-Mont, he formed plans for his series of etchings of old Paris and began to make studies for them. As early as 1850 one of these masterly plates, Le Petit Pont (plate 7), was finished.

In making his studies of old houses and churches, Meryon seldom made a complete drawing on the spot. He would go every day at the same hour and make minutely finished studies of details on small bits of paper, which he either stuck together or made another drawing from them. He used an exceedingly sharp, hard pencil; the astonishing fineness of the line that he produced with it may be well seen in two early drawings of Rouen Cathedral from the Seine in the British Museum, which also possesses some of the drawings of architecture at Bourges, a place which first fascinated him on a visit made about 1848. In drawing architecture Meryon always worked upwards from the bottom of his object, saying that buildings were begun from the foundation and the artist