Notre-Dame de Paris 1901

Frédéric Houbron made this painting of Notre-Dame de Paris with oil on canvas sometime in the late 19th century. I think he probably stood right on the street to make it. You can see Houbron working with thin layers, really trying to get the light as it hits the stone. What was it like to try to capture the cathedral? And that grey Parisian light… I can see him squinting in the open air, mixing colors, trying again and again to describe it. I see the gestures he made to create the towers. The paint is thin, scrubbed in, almost like a watercolor. It’s so hard to paint architecture, to make it feel solid but still have light. He’s not afraid to let the white of the canvas show through, to give it air. Painters are always looking at each other, stealing ideas, working through the same problems. Trying to describe the world. Every painting is a conversation.