The Notre-Dame Pump

The Notre-Dame pump was demolished shortly after Meryon depicted it in 1852. The artist himself admitted that he had taken liberties with the appearance of this structure and its surroundings. He minimized the heaviness of the building by modifying certain details and raised the towers of Notre Dame a bit higher so that they would be visible from his vantage point. Meryon wrote about these changes, but I consider these liscenses permissible since it is, so to speak, in this way that the mind works as soon as the actual objects which have arrested its attention have disappeared from sight.