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Saint Paul's Cathedral

Cathedral of Saint Paul in London line art illustration (click image to enlarge)

Artist's notes:

The illustration of Saint Paul's Cathedral in London was completed sometime in 1992. At the time, I was exclusively working in black and white, and the drawings were more based upon line rather than stipple. Obviously, there are many more straight had edges in architecture than in organic forms like plants and animals, which probably is a large reason why that as I shifted away from architecture to focus on wildlife my style of rendered also changed. I have visited Christopher Wren's awe inspiring masterpiece of architecture, and upon entering the cathedral I was moved to tears because of it's incredible beauty.

Information about Saint Paul's Cathedral:

Saint Paul's Cathedral is a large, Baroque style building in the city of London, England. The groundbreaking for the cathedral was in 1675. The cathedral was the fourth building to occupy the site and three previous cathedrals had been variously destroyed before construction began. The architect was Sir Christopher Wren, who is credited with building on 50 churches in London following the Great Fire of 1666. The building was the tallest in London until 1962. During the blitz, the cathedral was damaged, but was not destroyed, despite the fact the building was targeted by the German bombers. The cathedral, unlike other European churches, has few artifacts but several famous people are interred in the crypt, including the architect himself, The Duke of Wellington, Sir Winston Churchill, Florence Nightingale, the painters Sir Joshua Reynolds and JM Turner and Lord Horatio Nelson.