My aim in painting has always been the most exact transcription possible of my most intimate impressions of nature. - Edward Hopper

Roofs of the Cobb Barn provides an elevated view of postmaster A. B. Burleigh Cobb’s barns in South Truro, Cape Cod. The composition unites the familiarity of a New England coastal landscape with a surprising element of abstraction—the clean, geometric forms and white planes of barn roofs. Having spent previous summers in coastal towns around Gloucester, Massachusetts, Hopper visited Cape Cod in 1930 and returned each summer to paint, building a modest house in the village of South Truro in 1934. The relative solitude and starkness of the coastal landscape inspired him to refine and simplify his compositions to reveal the essence of a scene. Here he focused on the simple forms of the sun-washed barn roofs. Intrigued by the contrast between organic and inorganic forms, Hopper used light, color, and form to render the rigid geometry of the barn buildings in harmony with the natural environment, creating a quite meditative atmosphere. The composition delivers an unexpectedly modern statement in the context of a realist landscape.