BBC –  Artists as diverse as JMW Turner and Edward Hopper have been inspired to capture the spirit and beauty of the iconic cathedral. Kelly Grovier picks some of the finest.

News this week of the devastating fire that ravaged Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris stopped the world in its tracks. Rising above the River Seine, the iconic structure throbs like an elegant engine, its hulking towers pumping at the heart of the city like a pair of powerful pistons. Few edifices in history have become quite so synonymous with the spirit of a place. Cherished for its pioneering use of flying buttresses and ribbed vaulting, the 12th-Century church emerged as the epicentre of Parisian cultural consciousness following the publication in 1831 of Victor Hugo’s novel Notre-Dame de Paris – better known in English by the Anglicised title The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.  – read more