URBAN BIRDS OF PREY: Nighthawks by Edward Hopper

1st Art Gallery com

NIGHTHAWKS by Edward Hopper, 1942, Oil on canvas, 33.1 in x 60 in. (84.1 cm x 152.4 cm). THIS PAINTING IS AVAILABLE TO PURCHASE as a handmade oil painting reproduction here: https://www.1st-art-gallery.com/Edward-Hopper/Night-Hawks.html

Who hasn’t felt that sense of loneliness and isolation as depicted in the paintings of Edward Hopper. It’s a Hopper trademark. And for many, this work, “Nighthawks” is the quintessential representation of the painter’s personal vision.

The temptation is read all sorts of hidden meaning and symbolism in Hopper’s works, but as the artist stated himself, “The whole answer is there on the canvas.” So let’s take a look at this painting.

It’s a relatively large work, measuring nearly 3 ft. X 5 ft. and depicts an all-night diner on an empty, dimly lit street. The inside of the diner is harshly lit from fluorescent lights above, casting deep shadows over the faces of the patrons. The clientele includes a couple. The man, thin and gaunt-faced, in a blue suit and fedora and holding a cigarette, is half listening to the man behind the counter. The woman, with the red blouse and technicolor red hair is preoccupied with what is supposedly a sandwich.

The only other customer is a man with his back to the viewer. There’s a newspaper under one elbow and he appears to be reading the menu.

They are loners, looking for respite at this way station to wherever. One gets the feeling they have nowhere better go, nor anywhere they want to go.

It’s an elongated picture which gives it a rather cinematic feel. The composition is unique for its use of rectangular shapes. It’s like a picture within a picture within a picture. The light from the diner radiates out on to the sidewalk creating a mosaic pattern of greenish hues.

In many of Hopper’s paintings the viewer becomes the voyeur looking in, uninvited into the private lives of his subjects. And even a public place can be as lonely as quiet room. This seems especially true with Nighthawks. From our standpoint as the viewer, standing outside at a distance, we are confronted with the question: would it be better to join the melancholy of humanity inside the diner, or remain outside surrounded by the warm darkness and anonymity of the city? It’s a vision that touches a deep place in the American psyche.

Hopper is considered part of American Realist movement, but his paintings seem more Noir if you can apply that appellation his paintings, as his work seems to anticipate the popular Noir films of the 1940’s and 50s. Hopper himself rejected comparison with other painters or movements stating, “I think the American Scene painters caricatured America. I always wanted to do myself.”

#nighthawks
#edwardhooper
#hooperartwork
#nighthawkspainting

https://youtu.be/6j6U-nFizLo

Source