Cilla McQueen - The Radio Room

In the middle distance four people stand to the right of the entrance. Further reduced by distance, a group of three on the steps in front of the door. The distant three are little more than scratches but it is possible to see from the arrangement of their lines that a tall man, hands clasped behind his back, his legs two fine strokes, is bending slightly towards the woman beside him who is middle-aged, well-dressed, with a pale fur around her shoulders. Fox. Standing beside the woman is a gauche, slim-shouldered girl. The engraving of light areas is so feathery that the outline of York Minster is faintly blurred.

Shaded areas are hatched. The cathedral is bathed in sunlight from high on the left. It might be spring, late morning, after Matins. Of the group on the right, two are children. A boy of about eight wearing a cap, hands in his pockets, stands near his smaller sister. With the use of a magnifying glass one can see that their mother is wearing a knee-length chequered skirt, a fitted jacket and a beret.

The other figure might be a woman with her back turned, wearing a fur coat over a dark skirt below the knee. The single figure on the right is unlike the groups outside the church, whose shadows are miniatures of the larger shadows strong horizontal. This figure is going in the direction of the Minster but is perhaps about to turn the corner of the garden and walk away down the western side. A scarf over her hair, she walks heavily, bent slightly forwards under the weight of a sack on her back. Her gait seems measured, trudging. The dark streak of shadow across the base of the towers draws the eye which then travels up to their filigree crenellations.

A difference in the line distinguishes the laden figure in the foreground from the groups near the cathedral steps. On the left-hand footpath near the car, opposite the woman going the other way, three other figures can be seen in the shadow of the tree. There is energy in the lines of all but the woman who is walking towards the church but not going to church. She is perhaps on her way home with a bag of washing. Head bent, she leans slightly to the left because of what is slung over her right shoulder. She walks past four rounded trees, fruit trees perhaps, half the height of the tree across the road which casts the long shadow.