his plates warm and brilliant.
Nobility of form, grandeur of mass, a light and shade that is
positively dramatic in its dispersion over wall and tower, are the
characteristic marks of this unique etcher. He could not resist the
temptation of dotting with figures the huge spaces of his ruins. They
dance or recline or indulge in uncouth gestures. His shadows are
luminous--you may gaze into them; his high lights caught on some
projection or salient cornice or silvering the August porticoes of a
vanished past, all these demonstrate his feeling for the dramatic. And
dramatic is the impression evoked as you study the majestic temples
that were Paestum, the bare, ruined arches and pillars that were Rome.
It is Paestum that is the more vivid. It tallies, too, with the
Piranesi plates; while Rome has visibly changed since his day. His
original designs for chimneys, Diverse Maniere d'Adornare i Camini,
are pronounced by several critics as "foolish and vulgar." He left
nearly two thousand etchings, and died at Rome November 9, 1778. His
son erected a mediocre statue by Angolin for his tomb in Il Priorato.
A manuscript life of Piranesi, which was in London about 1830, is now
lost. Bryan's dictionary gives a partial list of his works "as
published both by himself in Rome and by his sons in Paris. The plates
passed from his sons first to Firmin-Didot, and ultimately into the
hands of the Papal Government."

De Quincey's quotation of Wordsworth is apposite in describing
Piranesi's creations: "Battlements that on their restless fronts bore
stars"; from sheer brutal masonry, gray, aged, and moss-encrusted, he
invented a precise pattern and one both passionate and magical.

MERYON

Until the recent appearance of the Baudelaire letters (1841-66) all
that we knew of Meryon's personality and art was to be found in the
monograph by Philippe Burty and Beraldi's Les Graveurs du XIX Siecle.
Hamerton had written of the French etcher in 1875 (Etching and
Etchers), and various anecdotes about his eccentric behaviour were
public property. Frederick Wedmore, in his Etching in England, did not
hesitate to group Meryon's name with Rembrandt's and Jacquemart's (one
feels like employing the Whistlerian formula and asking: Why drag in
Jacquemart?); and to-day, after years of critical indifference, the
unhappy copper-scratcher has come into his own. You may find him
mentioned in such company as Duerer, Rembrandt, and Whistler. The man
who f