Watercolour and ink on black: monks in coloured robes on the steps of a temple at night, each at a different stage of awakening. Before the Bell, a zen fine art print.

Before the Bell

4×6″
CHF 32.00
CHF 32.00
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Watercolour and ink on black: monks in coloured robes on the steps of a temple at night, each at a different stage of awakening. Before the Bell, a zen fine art print.
  • Watercolour and ink on black: monks in coloured robes on the steps of a temple at night, each at a different stage of awakening. Before the Bell, a zen fine art print.
  • Corner of the Before the Bell fine art print on Hahnemühle German Etching paper, robed figures ascending pale steps toward a night temple in ink and wash, angled with printed paper credentials.
  • Framed Before the Bell fine art print on a wooden shelf in dappled daylight, robed figures ascending pale steps toward a night temple in ink and wash, by Léna Ruisz.
  • Eight framed Small Narratives fine art prints on wooden ledges in soft daylight, intimate watercolour and ink scenes including a moonlit hilltop house, a temple stairway, a gold-repaired bowl and a footprint of colour, by Léna Ruisz.
  • Watercolour and ink on black: monks in coloured robes on the steps of a temple at night, each at a different stage of awakening. Before the Bell, a zen fine art print.
  • Corner of the Before the Bell fine art print on Hahnemühle German Etching paper, robed figures ascending pale steps toward a night temple in ink and wash, angled with printed paper credentials.
  • Framed Before the Bell fine art print on a wooden shelf in dappled daylight, robed figures ascending pale steps toward a night temple in ink and wash, by Léna Ruisz.
  • Eight framed Small Narratives fine art prints on wooden ledges in soft daylight, intimate watercolour and ink scenes including a moonlit hilltop house, a temple stairway, a gold-repaired bowl and a footprint of colour, by Léna Ruisz.
Before the Bell

Before the Bell

⭐️ Printed on museum-grade Hahnemühle German Etching, 310gsm

⭐️ A giclée print in pigment-based archival inks, from an original watercolour, never mass-produced

⭐️ Printed to order, with FREE WORLDWIDE SHIPPING
CHF 32.00
CHF 32.00
Taxes included. FREE SHIPPING WORLDWIDE.
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Monks on the temple steps at night, each at a different stage of awakening, in the held breath before the bell.

A small night narrative in watercolour and ink, made into an archival fine art print.

Most of these small narratives I improvise, feeling first. This one I planned, every part of it, around a Hungarian phrase: időtlen időbeli, temporarily timeless, a paradox held in a single breath, outside time for a moment while still inside it. The monks are seated on the steps of a temple at night, in meditation. The bell is the one that will ring to end it and call them back into time. This is the moment just before it, time suspended, no one moving yet.

Read along the steps and you can watch it happen: each monk is at a different state of awakening, the nearest one deepest in meditation, the farthest one fully awake. The colour carries it too, a colour perspective, the robes cool and purple up close, warming as they rise toward the temple. Above them, the temple is built from thousands of fine ink dots. The original measures only 6 by 10 centimetres.

I have painted these monks again since, set into other works, because seeing them keeps the feeling of this one near.

The title does not translate the phrase. It puts you inside it, waiting, listening for a bell that has not yet rung.

Printed to order on Hahnemühle German Etching, a heavyweight 310gsm mould-made fine art paper, acid- and lignin-free to museum standard, with archival pigment inks. A giclée from an original watercolour by Léna Ruisz, never a mass reproduction, colour-managed to stay true to the original painting. Because every screen shows colour a little differently, what you see on your device may vary slightly from the finished print. Free worldwide shipping, arriving ready to live with. No frame is forced on you, so choose the size that fits your wall.

You are buying the fine art print only. The frame shown in the product image, and any mount, furniture, plants or other props in the photographs, are there to show scale and setting. They are not included in your purchase.