Cathedral #6, State I (C.81) extends the engagement of the final Cathedral print by applying a yellow-green palette to the same lithographic matrix — the Gothic façade of Rouen now set in a colour range that bears no relationship to the warm tones of either Monet's originals or the earlier works in Lichtenstein's own series. The state format, used here as in the Haystack series, demonstrated that the structural structure of the Cathedral could sustain any chromatic key, its meaning independent of any particular colour relationship. Lichtenstein's use of states within the Cathedral Series reflected his consistent interest in the print as a medium for variation.

Where a painter makes a single resolved work, the artist can return to the screens and alter a single variable — in this case colour — while holding everything else constant. Cathedral #6, State I (C.81) makes this logic explicit, treating the colour variant not as a proof or a preparatory step but as a complete and independent position. In the context of the series as a whole, the states of Cathedral #6 add a further dimension to Lichtenstein's exchange with Monet.

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