Yet, they also draw us into their space in all of Hopper’s paintings the viewer, too, is made conscious. They are not anonymous, because they communicate an interior consciousness which we recognise but cannot access. In their urban or domestic space, caught in a moment when they are not conscious of us, his people, which could easily be static objects, manage to engage us. His paintings all have the quality of a still-life. Even when he paints people in some sort of relationship – at a table, in a lounge or on a bed – there is always a sense of aloneness, space both defining and placing them while emphasising their singularity. The bright, unforgiving lights and shadows of the interior often contrast with the deep blackness of the night outside. He is most recognisable in his urban landscapes of New York, in the determined presence of its buildings, especially its bars and cafes peopled by women and men caught in some timeless moment of recollection or solitude. Whether it is the wide landscapes of the open plains or the shore, through the bold clarity of his shapes he manages to communicate the subtle interplay of space and light. At which point does solitude become loneliness, or vice versa?Įdward Hopper is one of the most recognisable American artists of the 20th century. The clean simplicity and the physical solidity, the wide ocean skies, the lone petrol stations, or the dark emptiness of space and time that surrounds the ‘ Nighthawks’, all speak to us of the latent complexities and depths of even the most mundane moments and places.
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