Debussy: Sunken Cathedral 1993

Maria Bozoky made this watercolor painting, *Debussy: Sunken Cathedral,* using delicate washes and energetic lines. Imagine Bozoky, brush in hand, coaxing the cathedral from the depths with each fluid stroke. I’m struck by how the rose window pulses with hidden light, a burst of color against the muted blues. The overall effect is dreamy and insubstantial, as if conjured from memory or myth. Those sweeping lines give the impression of rising waters, like a building half-glimpsed through shifting currents. It reminds me a bit of Turner’s paintings of Venice. It seems to me that Bozoky is in conversation with Debussy’s music, the cathedral a vision emerging from the misty, evocative sounds. Painters, like musicians, can transform an everyday scene into something extraordinary.