Rooftops 

Curator: Welcome. Before us hangs "Rooftops," an oil painting by Georges Lemmen. Editor: The initial impact is rather calming; there's a mosaic of colours playing across rooftops and foliage that feels inherently harmonious. The geometry provides stability. Curator: Indeed. The composition is meticulously structured, isn't it? Observe the interplay of the geometric forms – the pitched roofs offset against the organic shapes of the trees. This provides a dialectic, creating both tension and balance in the pictorial space. Editor: It certainly highlights the means of production, I see the repetitive brickwork and mass-produced materials creating these spaces. One wonders how the people living there experienced this uniformity. It really does underscore the relationship between material production and the social landscape. Curator: An astute observation. We can’t dismiss the influence of Neo-Impressionism. The dabs and strokes work collectively to generate a luminous atmosphere, adhering to a scientific approach of colour. The artist segments areas with geometric and compositional unity which adds to the experience. Editor: Yet, I am struck more by what the image avoids depicting. Who laid the bricks for the buildings? What were the working conditions like on the building site? To divorce this image from the tangible experience of labour feels incomplete to me. What stories do these roofs represent, and who gets to tell them? Curator: Your line of enquiry introduces new meaning to our semiotic investigation. Perhaps what is left unseen is equally resonant? As always there is the balance to be found in looking into the painting itself, or what lies beyond its material limits and in history itself. Editor: Indeed, it prompts us to consider the material and social realities that shaped the cityscape and the artwork, beyond the pleasing aesthetic. Curator: Thank you for broadening our vision today, and I am in awe of how the structure both informs the experience of living there while informing our art history too.