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Liudmila Kondakova - Rooftops of Paris at Night
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As we gaze from our hotel window upon the rooftops of the “City of Lights,” we see the Eiffel Tower standing tall in the distance as the city falls into a slumber after yet another beautiful day in Paris. In Rooftops of Paris at Night, Kondakova has shifted her focus from the city streets to the vantage point of the magnificent skyline, inviting us all to relish in the beauty of elegance of classical French architecture. The rooftops represent a quiet escape from the streets below, a way to experience and appreciate the city of Paris in the privacy of our own surroundings. Kondakova presents us with a view that suggests a kind of melancholy silence. While the sites of the city are illuminated from below and the moon shines brightly above, the Paris skyline seems almost lonely. In this piece, as with many of her pieces, the artist has compressed a number of the many architectural gems of Paris into one point of view, giving us a guided tour of the city of love, including the Sacre Coeur Basilica atop the Montmart Hill, the Hotel des Invalides, the Louvre, and the ever-present Eiffel Tower. Her technical skill is made obvious by the precision needed to accent every tiny embellishment on each far off building, making this a one-of-a-kind view, and pure Kondakova.
As always, Kondakova uses her mastery of the intricacies of light and color to allow us to feel a part of the dramatic skyline. The subtle shadings of the nighttime sky, from rose tones to cobalt, to midnight blue, combined with the vivid colors of the sky against the warm tones of the rooftops gives the effect of pure romance. Who would not want to enjoy this evening, and this view. In the artist’s words - “To me, these streets, with the worn cobblestone and aged buildings, envoke a sense of nostalgia and romance with a touch of melancholy. It is the ideal space which I would like to live.”
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