Although
viewers take various stances as to what themes are characteristic of Edward
Hopper’s work, one common opinion is that he poignantly portrays human
loneliness and isolation. His paintings are sometimes animated with human figures
and sometimes void of them. But when figure are there, they are often alone. Some
of these figures look “apathetic, pensive, and proud of their
solitude,”[1]
while others seem to be dejected and longing for company.
Hopper was
creating at the tail end of the industrial revolution and in the decades
following; all the works in this exhibition fall into the late 1920s to early
1950s. An important question to consider is how Hopper’s work is a product of
his era and how acutely it reflect his immediate culture. Social critics of the
industrial revolution prophesied of an increasingly isolated individuals living
alone amongst the masses. Literarily, the Southern Agrarians called for a
return to a pastoral lifestyle arguing that social exchanges like conversation,
hospitality, sympathy, family life, and romantic love fall asunder in the face
of industrialization, disturbing the right relationship of man-to-man just as
mechanization disrupts the right relationship of man-to-nature.[2]
Are
Hopper’s figures the fulfillment of these prophesies; is he taking a similar
critical approach, lamenting the loneliness of industrialized life? This
proposition is no less important in this post-industrial, technology driven age
as social commentator Sherry Turkle writes, “Technology is seductive when what
it offers meets our human vulnerabilities. And as it turns out, we are very
vulnerable indeed. We are lonely but fearful of intimacy.”[3]
What can Hopper and his figures tell us about social isolation, not only in the
industrial decades but in modern day?
[1] Edward
Hopper and the Blank Canvas
(2012: Films of Demand), Film.
[2]
Andrews William, The Literature of the
American South (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1998), 393.
[3]
Turkle Sherry, Alone Together: Why We
Expect More from Technology and Less form Each Other (New York: Basic Books,
2011), 1.
Edward Hopper; Office in a Small City; 1953; oil on canvas; 28 x 40 in.; Accession Number: 53.183
All attention is drawn to the lone
figure in this piece. He is encased in a box of windows and walls, like a mime.
His desk in empty of any clutter, no loose papers or pens, no work to be done,
and nobody to talk to. He is gazing out the window with his back turned to the
viewer. There is not a single other living object in the painting and hardly anything
that will claim attention, just geometrical shapes of buildings and vents. If
the viewer could work around to gaze through the other window and see the
figure’s face, what would his expression be: stoic, sullen, ambivalent? Importantly,
Hopper loses the top left corner of the front window to the frame, suggesting
the everydayness of the scene, like an aimlessly taken snapshot.
Edward Hopper; Nighthawks; 1942; oil on canvas; 84.1 x 152.4 cm; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
Source: www.wikiart.com
This piece is Hopper’s most popular,
hanging on the walls of classrooms and waiting rooms across the nation. Like Office in a Small City, Hopper places
the figures in a glass box of windows. A simple and plain exterior redirects
all attention to the interior of the diner and to the interactions, or lack
thereof, between the four figures. One man sits alone with his back towards the
viewer, while the other two customers are evidently together but are not paying
any attention to each other. The woman is contemplating her hand, and the man
smokes. The diner cook looks at the smoking man, but it is hard to imagine
their conversation being anything more substantial than, “Would you like more
coffee?” Is the figures’ aloneness the pathetic, regrettable kind Sherry Turkle
describes as being Alone Together, or
is it a prideful, stoic type suggested in the title Nighthawks?
Edward Hopper; Morning Sun; 1952; oil on canvas; 101.98
x 71.5 cm; Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio, USA
Source:www.wikiart.com
Edward Hopper; Cape Cod Morning; 1950; oil on canvas; 101.98 x 87 cm; Smithsonian
American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., USA
Source: wikiart.com
Hopper
employs his window box technique again in this painting. But ,somehow, its
function seems different than how it is used in either Office in a Small City or Nighthawk.
In this piece, the female figure inside the box leans over a table and looks
searchingly out the window. She seems trapped, like she is stuck alone in her
house. She looks out longingly, as if waiting for her loved one to come home
but whose return is out of her hands and uncontrollable. How well does this
piece communicate the anxiety and loneliness that transcends time and culture
of being without a loved one?
Edward Hopper; Sunday; Edward Hopper; 1926;
oil on canvas; 86.36 x 73.66 cm; Private Collection
In this piece, the
organically shaped body of the male figure sits in sharp contrast to the
vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines of the buildings, sidewalk, and road. The
contrast draws the viewer’s attention to the lone man who looks like a
bartender. It is hard to tell why he is sitting on the sidewalk, perhaps taking
a break after a long night shift or getting a breath of fresh air during a slow
Sunday afternoon. Like the window receding out frame in Office in a Small City, the diagonal lines of the buildings and sidewalk exit
the painting abruptly, bespeaking the mundane, everydayness of the scene. It’s
the commonplace aloneness felt most when everybody has left or nobody has come
that is not altogether bitter but reflective.
Edward Hopper; Early
Sunday Morning; 1930; oil on canvas; Whitney
Museum of American Art, New York, USA
Source: www.wikiart.com
As opposed to all other paintings in this
exhibit, this Hopper piece does not portray any human figures. Instead of
figures depicting isolation, desolation describes emptiness and loneliness. Being
early morning, the scene looks like a ghost town, lifeless and abandoned. The
deep, negative space between the picture plain and the buildings is completely
empty, and the flat space of the buildings could be the backdrop to a portrait.
If this piece were a portrait, what would the subject be? Two objects stand out
as particularly curved and rounded compared to the building and sidewalk: the fire
hydrant and barbershop pole. Hopper indwells them—as they stand in the desolate
space—with the same loneliness evident in his figures.
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