León

John Taylor Arms

A small Spanish courtyard is illuminated by afternoon sunlight, allowing a handful of chickens to bask in its warmth as a man sets off on his daily tasks. Simple, working-class adobe structures with tiled roofs are central to the composition, offset by the lightly rendered spires of León Cathedral in the background, its Baroque profile rising into the clear sky. While he is sure to make the cathedral a secondary landmark in this composition, Arms has not left out any of the complex details on the aspects that can be seen.

The 13th century Santa Maria de Regla de León Cathedral, considered a masterpiece of its place in the Gothic timeline, holds the largest intact collections of original stained glass windows in the world. This owes to its design, an extreme form of the “dematerialized” Gothic, in which much of the wall space that would normally be taken up by stone is replaced with intricate glass windows.