Chasse-maree au plus pres 

Curator: Ah, another nautical reverie! We're looking at Charles Meryon's pencil drawing, "Chasse-maree au plus pres." It looks to me to be about gesture and quick capture of something the artist has experienced. Editor: There’s an understated strength here; the stark lines and monochromatic scheme immediately evoke a sense of maritime labor and material exchange. Those sails, in particular, feel monumental but, honestly, also rather ghostly against the backdrop of that somewhat scribbled seascape. Curator: I like that—"ghostly." I feel that sense of memory, the drawing holding on to a feeling more than describing a factual event. I imagine Meryon capturing something fleeting. Look at those smudges of clouds. I imagine him sketching this very rapidly, trying to pin down his recollection as quickly as possible. It almost feels haunted. Editor: I'm thinking about what went into the making, not just the artistry of observation. The type of graphite in the pencil and where the paper came from are important. Was this work commissioned, or an artist exploring the dockyards on their own? You feel the industry. Even those scribbled lines, for me, aren’t about ephemeral recollection; they speak to the raw energy needed to control such vessels, of the materials, of the building. You think of ships decaying at dock after having carried their valuable loads across great expanses of water. Curator: You always take me out to the docks, don't you? That very matter-of-fact, slightly world-weary view is really a kind of beauty, too. And, I suppose that material connection can add a different kind of story to it, one about commerce, about things as objects. It is wonderful how simple this scene looks and how complex one can make it by following just one idea. Editor: And that’s precisely it: it's an exchange of materials and thoughts. It forces one to consider the relationship between labor and art, the unseen hands shaping these landscapes. So simple, but so profound when you consider what each part of its process asks one to ask! Curator: Meryon presents the feeling and a shadow; you find a foundation of stone to lay under my romantic cloud. A nice blend, indeed.