Cathedral #3 (C.77) is among the most insistent works in Roy Lichtenstein's Cathedral Series. The façade of Rouen Cathedral is set in deep blue against a lighter blue ground, the dot fields so dense that the architectural tracery registers as a tonal variation within the pattern rather than as distinct line.

The image presses toward abstraction — the cathedral is present but barely, held in the work by gathered strokes rather than drawn form. This progressive dissolution of the architectural subject across the series was deliberate.

Lichtenstein was working through the very problem that Monet had faced: how to represent a fixed form under conditions that constantly transformed it.

Where Monet's solution was atmospheric and optical, Lichtenstein's was systematic — each work in the series applying a different colour relationship and dot density to subject.

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