Payne's Grey · 2026

“Notre-Dame nella Luce”

The west front of Notre-Dame crossed by shafts of light — towers and rose window emerging from Payne's grey, bright diagonals breaking across the stone.

Details

TitleNotre-Dame nella Luce

PlaceParis, France

Year2026

CategoryPayne's Grey

Dimensions14.8 × 21 cm (A5)

TechniqueInk and Payne's grey watercolour on Clairefontaine paper

Palette of the work

Request information

This piece is part of my collection. Originals will soon be available to buy online — write to me in the meantime.

The subject

Notre-Dame, in the Light

The great cathedral of Paris, drawn not as a façade to be catalogued but as light — the rose window and the pointed arches caught in slanting beams, in Payne’s grey with the brightness cut out of the shadow.

Notre-Dame de Paris, begun in 1163 on the Île de la Cité, is the heart of French Gothic: twin towers, flying buttresses, three great rose windows. The fire of 2019 nearly took it; its reopening in 2024 made the whole world exhale.

I was less interested in listing the sculpture than in the way light pours through and across that west front — so I drew the beams themselves, cutting pale diagonals over the stone.

The grey does the rest: deep in the arches, almost white where the light lands.

City: Paris, France
Begun: 1163
Style: French Gothic
Island: Île de la Cité
Reopened: 2024

Notre-Dame de Paris seen from the Seine, with its spire — Notre-Dame from the river — the Gothic cathedral on the Île de la Cité.Photo: Uoaei1 — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The sculpted west portals of Notre-Dame de Paris — Light across the west front — the three carved Gothic portals.Photo: Benh LIEU SONG — CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

I drew the light more than the stone — the cathedral as a thing the sun passes through.

Ink carries the tracery and the arches; the Payne’s grey is laid in washes and then lifted out again for the shafts of light.

It is a companion to my colour drawing of the same cathedral — the same face, seen this time almost as a negative, all shadow and shine.

See also · Payne’s Grey Notre-Dame de Paris · Cupola del Brunelleschi a Firenze · Pagoda a Kyoto