Edward Hopper.
American realist painter and printmaker.
Born July 22, 1882.
Edward Hopper was born to a middle-class family in Nyack, New York.
Growing up he was a very quiet and reserved child.
This never changed as Hopper grew older.
Edward Hopper was always a gifted artist.
At a young age his family and teachers would always praise his artwork.
He began to build confidence as an artist as the years passed by.
Hopper graduated high school in 1899 and in the fall of that same year he began formal
training at the New York School of Illustrating.
A year later, he persuaded his family to let him transfer to a much more famous and distinguished
school: The New York School of Art.
That is where Hopper would truly define his talent in Robert Henri's Life Drawing Class.
In his mid-twenties, Hopper began to travel to Europe, mainly Paris.
He went to Paris on three different occasions.
It was there that he became influenced by the art movement known as impressionism.
Impression is a 19th century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet
visible brush strokes.
Impressionism originated with a group of Paris-based artists including Edgar Degas and Claude Monet.
Here are some examples of impressionism art: _ When Hopper returned to the United States
he would eventually hone his craft into American Realism.
Realism in the arts is the attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, without artificiality
and avoiding artistic conventions, implausible, and supernatural elements.
Throughout the next two decades Hopper would continue to hone his craft enjoying very little
success along the way.
By 1923, Hopper's slow climb finally produced a breakthrough.
He encountered Josephine Nivison (Niv ison), an artist and former student of Robert Henri,
during a summer painting trip in Gloucester (Gloster), Massachusetts.
The two would marry a year later.
Josephine was a big part of Hopper's success.
She managed his career and his interviews, was his primary model for his artwork, and
was his life companion.
Edward Hopper has a fixation with painting people as if they are being looked at through
a looking glass.
Many of these individuals are painted looking as if they are isolated from the world and
come off as outcasts.
During the second world war, Hopper painted his most well-known work: Nighthawks.
Hopper has denied that he purposely pervades Nighthawks or any of his other artworks with
signs of isolation or emptiness but he probably, unconsciously, painted the loneliness of a
city.
Some of Hopper's most well-known works were Automat, Office in a Small City, and Nighthawks.The
Art Institute of Chicago, Friends of American Art Collection.
In 1941, Edward Hopper found himself incapable of painting in his studio apartment.
He was suffering through severe depression and great anxiety that he was not able to
paint.
This was all due in part because of the war going on; World War II.
He was depressed because of the Unites States inclusion in the war.
It was his wife Jo that got him out of that depression and helped him to start painting
again and to ease out of his artist block.
There was a possibility of New York getting bombed at that time and yet Hopper refused
to stop painting what would be his greatest creation Nighthawks.
In Nighthawks, there are a group of four people sitting in a diner that can be seen through
a looking glass.
The diner is green and there are large glass windows that allow the viewer to see the four
character's in the artwork.
On top of the counter is a brown advertisement for Phillies cigars.
There is a brown counter inside the diner where three people are sitting on stools surrounding
the counter.
The first character that is closest to the window is turned away from view so you cannot
see the man's face.
He is wearing a grayish suit and a gray fedora who has just finished eating because there
is an empty plate and glass in front of him.
Behind the counter is the waiter.
Donning an all-white work attire, he seems to be young and getting ready to attend one
of the patrons.
Lastly, there is a couple, or what appears to be a couple.
A man wearing a blue suit and light blue fedora sitting down smoking a cigarette.
On the right of him is a red headed woman wearing a red dress fidgeting with a sugar/salt
packet.
The two appear to be together, but yet estranged because neither one looks interested in the
other judging by their facial expressions.
Outside of the diner are what appear to be apartments and stores.
The bottom half of the buildings are a dark green color with windows and a cash register
in plain sight.
The top half of the building is an orange-red color with green curtains that are half-way
open or closed depending on your perception.
There appear to be no street lights in the outside which is why it is so dark in the
street.The artist is Edward Hopper.
Edward Hopper exhibited Nighthawks at the Frank K.M.
Rehn Gallery.
Hopper mainly painted for his own personal pleasure and not for the money or awards.The
title of Edward Hopper's painting is Nighthawks.
Hopper's wife Josephine was the one who came up with the name for the painting.
Hopper gained inspiration from Vincent Van Gogh's Night Café to paint Nighthawks.
Hopper painted Nighthawks in his studio apartment in New York.
During the time that Hopper was painting Nighthawks, there was the likely scenario of New York
being bombed.
Hopper was painting Nighthawks in the wake of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on
December 7, 1941.
During this time, Adolf Hitler has said that he intends to destroy New York and Washington.
Many people evacuated New York because of this, but Hopper refused to take an interest
in the likely prospect of being bombed and refused to leave his studio in New York and
finished the painting within a month.
Jo Hopper acknowledges this in Gail Levin's article titled "Edward Hopper's Nighthawks,
Surrealism, and the War."
The painting was finished on January 21, 1942.
This was a personal response to the inclusion of the United States in the Second World War.
Jo Hopper goaded Edward Hopper out of his depression at the time to paint again.
Through the artwork one can see the depths of his fears of the war, which fueled him
to paint with such animosity.
Put yourself in Edward Hopper's shoes.
Growing up introverted and lonesome.
Getting married to a woman who is the complete of opposite of you.
Yet, you still feel introverted and lonesome.
Hopper embraces his lonesome and depicts it in Nighthawks.
The couple in the painting (who Hopper and his wife Jo modeled for) is seen as if they
are not strangers but yet feel estranged to one another.
Take a look at the mid-right of the painting inside of the diner.
The inside of the diner is one of the first things that will get your attention.
More specifically the people in the diner.
Edward Hopper used shape to create the characters in the painting.
He used shape for the couple, the waiter, and the man sitting by himself.
Hopper also used shape for the diner accessories, the counter, the stools, and the espresso
machine.
The facial expression and the mannerisms of the couple and the waiter make up the illustration
of the painting embracing loneliness and isolation.
You can see by the facial expressions of the couple that they don't seem all that interested
in one another and that seem almost estranged even though they are not strangers.
The woman is seen fidgeting with sugar/salt packet almost out of boredom, while the man
is smoking a cigarette perhaps out of psychological dependency.
The waiter seems unfazed and unsure of what is becoming of him just looking out through
the window into the world.
As for the man sitting by himself, he a bit hard to read because you cannot see his facial
expression, but judging by the fact he is dining by himself he is lonely because there
is no one with him.
The characters in the diner make up the emotion in the painting.
Moving more towards the center is the diner, which, in its own way, is a character of the
painting as well.
It is depicted as an isle of light in the outer darkness.
It is the focal point of the painting because it "imprisons" the people in the diner.
I used the word imprisons because there are no entrance/exit doors in the painting.
The lines of the diner are strong and accentuated by the counter and the stools in the inside.
The diner is seen from a perspective of someone crossing the street.
Moving to the upper corner there is a building that extends behind the diner.
There is a lot of positive space in the background as it is inhabited by the secluded and desolate
building.
There is a beautiful blend of cool and warm colors.
From dark green to a red-orange color tone.
There is a cash register in the middle building indicating that it is probably a store.
The bottom left of the building is the sidewalk and street.
It is a nice blend color of gray and light blue.
The colors that Hopper put together to paint the street and sidewalk really give off a
lonely feel to the painting.
There are no streetlights and the only light to be seen is inside the diner.
The streets and sidewalk are empty as which is perhaps a subtle reference to the evacuation
of New York at the time.
Overall, this painting has focused on the elements that Edward Hopper saw as imperative
in his life.
There is loneliness and isolation being represented by the patrons and the waiter in the painting
and a separation of light with darkness expressed by the inside of the diner and street respectively.
My artwork was inspired by the artwork of Edward Hopper,
mainly Nighthawks and Automat.
I can relate to these paintings because I too feel isolated from the world.
I am not so much of an introverted person but I do find myself not really fitting in
anywhere.
For my artwork, I went to a local coffee shop and posed looking out the window to the world.
I posed as if I have not a care in the world, yet I don't know why I am such an outcast.
The world is filled with so many people who feel the same way yet I cannot find these
people so we can be alone and outcasts together.
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