Charente-Maritime, France
Cathédrale Saint-Pierre, Saintes
The great flamboyant tower of Saint-Pierre seen from the street below, drawn in warm ochre wash with two figures left in to give the stonework its true scale.
- Medium
- Ink and watercolour on paper
- Place
- Saintes, France
- Artist
- Gerald Allen Knowles
- Paper
- Museum-grade matte, pigment inks
Made to order and shipped worldwide. Sizes and framing options are shown at checkout.
About this drawing
Saint-Pierre dominates Saintes the way a cathedral is supposed to: you cannot get far enough away from it to see it comfortably. This drawing accepts that and works from a narrow street, looking up, with the façades on either side squeezing the tower into the middle of the sheet.
The tower is late gothic and unfinished at the top, capped instead of spired. Drawn from below, its buttresses lean into the picture, so the pencil setting-out was done as a series of converging verticals rather than a flat elevation.
Colour is kept to warm ochres, a green-grey for the shadowed stone, and small marks of dark for the openings. Two figures at the base of the street are the only human note, and they are there for one reason: without them nothing tells you how tall the building is.
The handwritten note and signature at the foot of the sheet are part of the original drawing and are reproduced with it.
Where this print hangs well
A tall, upright composition that suits a narrow wall, a stair landing, or a pair of alcoves either side of a chimney breast.
Warm oak or natural ash frames pick up the ochres. Hang it near the Abbaye aux Dames print for a two-piece Saintes grouping — nine centuries of the same town.
For sizing, framing and light, see the print buying guide.
