Roofs

Arkhip Kuindzhi's 'Roofs' (1887) is an unusual urban subject by the painter who was celebrated for his dramatic landscape atmospheres — the view across rooftops from an elevated urban vantage point creating a subject of modern city life quite different from his characteristic Ukrainian and Crimean landscapes. Kuindzhi's engagement with light on architectural surfaces transferred his atmospheric skills to the city's geometric forms, the rooftop panorama offering a bird's-eye view of urban structure bathed in the same quality of intense light that characterized his landscape subjects.

Kuindzhi renders the rooftops with his characteristic attention to light quality — the specific illumination on the varied surfaces of the urban roofscape (tiles, metal, flat areas) creating the atmospheric unity of his composition. His technique of creating intense luminous effects through careful tonal contrast is applied to the urban surface rather than to the natural landscape. The geometric character of the rooftops suits his interest in bold tonal relationships rather than atmospheric dissolution.