Charles Méryon was a French etcher and printmaker, who represented Realism movement. In his works, he depicted the life and mood of mid-19th-century Paris. Although, Charles was a great master of etching, whose work stroke other people with its originality and modernity, he was appreciated by only a few contemporary artists and critics. Méryon's prints were sold for almost nothing.
Background
Ethnicity:
His father was an Englishman and his mother was of French ancestry.
Charles Méryon was born on November 23, 1821 in Paris, France. He was an illegitimate child of Pierre-Narcisse Chaspoux, a French dancer, and Charles Lewis Meryon, an English physician and biographer. It wasn't until 1824, that the etcher was acknowledged by his father, whom he met only a few times throughout his life, however, they maintained a regular epistolary exchange.
Education
In 1826, with the financial support of his father, Méryon entered the Pension Savary boarding school in Passy, an area of Paris. Some time later, in 1837, he enrolled at the École Navale in Brest, France. There, Charles took topographical drawing classes, required in the education of naval officers.
Also, following his time in the Navy, the artist entered the studio of Alexandre Bléry, who taught him the technique of etching.
Career
Beginning in 1839, Méryon spent several years in the Navy, undertaking a series of voyages. In 1840, he visited Algeria, Tunisia, Greece and present-day Turkey. Drawings, which Charles produced during these trips, inspired his later etchings. Promoted to ensign, Méryon sailed on the corvette Rhin on a four-year voyage around the world. His drawings of Oceania, New Caledonia and New Zealand made on this trip inspired etchings as well.
Upon his arrival in Toulon in 1846, Méryon decided to pursue a career as an artist and took a leave of absence from the Navy. Two years later, in 1848, Charles permanently resigned from the Navy and moved to Paris, where he devoted himself fully to art.
At the end of the 1840's, the artist decided to make a group of plates, on which he depicted the city of Paris. Later, Méryon exhibited several prints in the Salons of 1850 and 1852. Also, it was at that time, that the artist started to sell exotic objects, brought back from Oceania, as he had some financial straits.
In 1857, Charles was invited by Duke d’Arenberg to visit him in Enghien, near Brussels, to etch his castle and land. But the artist was not able to work and came back to Paris in a poor mental state. The following year, in 1858, Méryon was taken to the Charenton Clinic, a psychiatric hospital at the edge of Paris, where he remained until September 1859. There, he was diagnosed with a deep melancholic depression.
After his release from the Charenton Clinic, the artist made numerous prints. During the period from 1860 till 1866, he produced a series of prints, based on drawings, made during his voyage to the South Seas. Also, some of his works were exhibited at several Salons during the 1860's. All in all, Charles created just over 100 prints during his career.
Suffering from hallucinations, Méryon was taken back to the Charenton asylum in October 1866, where he died two years later.
Personality
Charles Méryon suffered from colour blindness.