Notre-Dame, The Spire, 2nd State 

This picture shows the view from the south tower of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Based on a photograph taken by the artist, the image depicts the spire and the Parisian cityscape in clear lines made by engraving, one of the oldest copperplate techniques. Since his first visit to Notre Dame in 1992, Kubo Takuji has been captivated by the building, depicting it in many works. This work was republished in the United States after the artist added 8 millimeters to all four sides of an edition first produced in 1996. When the spire depicted here was destroyed by fire in 2019, Kubo used a photograph he had taken years earlier to add another image of the building in some blank space in the 1996 edition, once again depicting this lost cultural heritage in its former glory.
(KATADA Yuko)