Rooftops

This architectural sketch by Arnold William Brunner depicts an urban roofline rendered in quick, assured pen strokes. Brunner, an American architect and designer, used such studies to explore compositional possibilities and spatial relationships across building facades. The drawing's economy of line—varied hatching, minimal shading, and selective detail—became foundational to how commercial illustrators and early comic artists would later convey depth and structure. Working in the 1880s, before the newspaper comic strip emerged as a distinct form, Brunner's technical studies exemplify the visual traditions that influenced the development of sequential art's fundamental visual language: the articulation of space, architectural framework, and human scale within dynamic compositions.