Le stryge (The Vampire)

Meryon employed fine, incised lines to build texture and depth, using etching’s capacity for sharp contrast to amplify the scene’s gloom. The buildings are rendered with precise, angular detail, while the sky and wings are suggested through dense cross-hatching and atmospheric washes. The absence of color heightens the emotional tension, focusing the viewer’s attention on form, light, and the unsettling interplay between structure and the monstrous.

Created during Meryon’s most productive period, *Le stryge* was part of a series of etchings documenting Paris’s transformation under Haussmann’s renovations. Though admired by contemporaries like Baudelaire and later by Symbolist artists, Meryon’s work remained largely overlooked in English-speaking circles until the 20th century. The print survives in several museum collections, including the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In the mid-19th century, Paris was undergoing rapid modernization, yet Meryon turned away from progress to explore its forgotten corners and eerie after-hours moods. His work resonated with Romantic and Gothic literary currents, reflecting anxieties about industrialization and the loss of medieval identity. *Le stryge* emerges from this tension — a vision of the city as both monument and mausoleum.

Meryon’s influence extended to Symbolist and Expressionist printmakers who valued emotional intensity over realism. Though never widely popular in his lifetime, his ability to infuse urban scenes with psychological depth paved the way for later artists exploring the uncanny in architecture. *Le stryge* endures as a quiet but potent testament to the power of print to convey inner landscapes through external forms.