May 4: A favorite: Sempe

The city views of Jean-Jacques Sempe manage to be lovingly observed, intriguing and complex, without getting bogged down in all the detail. Facades, roof vents, windows, cornices, traffic—rich as it is, it’s all summerized so that the eye isn’t diverted from the central point, the wonderful, intimate moment of delight. And yet that, too, is so gentle, so reserved, that while centering on it we never lose our sense of the busy whole, the grand context.