Nighthawks, 1942, is emblematic of Hopper’s noirish, cinematic style, characterized by its voyeuristic perspectives, dramatic interaction of light and shadow, and emotionally isolated figures that inhabit anonymous urban spaces—roadside diners, gas stations, hotels. places of transit where we are aware of a particular kind of alienated poetry. Edward Hopper’s oeuvre has become inseparable from a certain image of inter- and post-war America, when the country underwent rapid change and grew increasingly affluent, but feelings of anxiety and detachment abounded.
Hopper’s paintings influenced American cultural giants like Alfred Hitchcock,
Mark Rothko and
Ed Ruscha. He saw his paintings as more than a manifestation of a uniquely American aesthetic; they represented something personal, the expression of his “inner experience,” as he described it. Indeed, many of his works illustrate troubled romantic relationships as Hopper conjured the complex psychological states of his subjects.
For example, in his late work
Intermission (1963), a woman sits alone in a seemingly empty movie theater. Her absent, downward gaze is mirrored by the strong diagonal shadow that runs along the wall to her left. The very edge of a curtained stage is visible to the right of the frame. It is up to the viewer to imagine if she is waiting for the feature to resume, or for something else outside the picture plane. The stillness of the room and the scene’s quiet tension suggest an intermission of another kind—a moment between events, to be alone with one’s thoughts. Hopper’s paintings suggest this cerebral space, one where the souls of his imaginary subjects intermingle with the artist’s own psyche.
The ambiguous, narrative richness of Hopper’s paintings—combined with their subtle, anxious energy—has given them a timeless quality, even as they are inexorably associated with mid-century America. It is Hopper’s tendency to clear out detail and incident, which allows us to project the details of our own lives into his painted world. Perhaps it is this mastery of mood and atmosphere—the combination of human figures with the ineffable psychological force achieved through line, color, and light.
Western Motel, 1957, illustrates the artist’s novel fusion of the figurative and abstract. A woman in a burgundy dress sits in a starkly furnished motel. She is framed by a wide, generous window that looks out onto a loose arrangement of blue-grey forms, rolling hills that pucker sensuously in the middle. The nose of a green car is visible outside the window, and her packed suitcase stands upright in the foreground of the frame. She is in the midst of a journey. While the image conveys many of Hopper’s trademarks—an anonymous, transitory environment; an isolated figure—it suggests not loneliness, but rather the generative nature of solitude. The painting nods to a certain expansiveness of the American imagination, one fueled by epic landscapes, endless skyscrapers, and the freedom of the open road.
