This is the last reference in any of the letters to Meryon, or to the album, for which Baudelaire never wrote his text, since no publisher was willing to publish the work. Had Poulet-Malassis not failed in 1861, it might have appeared, and then, in spite of the restrictions imposed upon the restive spirit of the poet, we might have had in Baudelaire’s text some literary equivalent of Meryon’s etchings. How sympathetic this would have been, is shown by the descriptive and interpretative passage from the Salon de 1859 already quoted, which, in a few sentences, completely defines the form of Meryon’s imaginative genius, and reveals the inmost source of its power to stir the emotions.
There was, indeed, much that was common to the genius of Meryon and of Baudelaire. The work of both was profoundly personal, and in both a powerful and somber imagination was tinged with a subtle fantasy supplied by a morbid exaggeration in the senses, which did not, however, preclude an intense and ardent preoccupation with formal perfection.
On the contrary, these two modern détraqués present in their work a solidity of construction and an absolute rectitude in the rendering of their moods and dreams, that is scarcely to be found in the work of even their best-balanced and sanest contemporaries. The art of Baudelaire has been compared to that of Racine, and, in the same way, Meryon’s design has the complete economy and control of Robert Nanteuil or of Callot. Men like these make us doubt and reconsider our stock distinctions of “romantic” and “classic.” The work of Meryon and of Baudelaire answers equally to both descriptions, and assures them a place apart in their generation. Thus, while their paths crossed but for a moment, and while they never shared with each other their secret thoughts and aspirations, there is, nevertheless, no small interest for the student in these slight and fragmentary records of what, had it not been for a cruel freak of fate, might have proved an enduring and fruitful friendship.
FÉLIX BRACQUEMOND: AN ETCHER
OF BIRDS
By FRANK WEITENKAMPF
Chief of the Department of Prints, New York Public Library
EVEN the artist of various interests actively expressed,—the versatile artist, if that adjective be used without the suspicion of superficiality which is often its aftertaste—is very apt to become associated in the public mind with some one specialty.
Félix Bracquemond is known particularly well as an etcher of birds. Yet he has done many things, more than one well enough to have established a reputation. At twenty he painted, and exhibited at the Salon of 1853, a portrait of himself, in a manner that carries you back to Holbein, that even faintly suggests the spirit of Van Eyck in its precise and detailed utterance. The portrait clearly indicates his future activity, for he holds in his hand a bottle of acid, while etching tools lie on a table near him. His etched portraits are numerous, and include such comparatively free productions as the ones of Legros and of Meryon, and the large, minutely finished one of Edmond de Goncourt. The last named is a characteristic and typical example of Bracquemond’s art, which, even when most painstaking, somehow or other never seems labored. Bracquemond appears as a peculiar and interesting mingling of Teutonic thoroughness and Gallic esprit.
Bracquemond. Ducks at Play