After Me: a Trip to Edward Hopper Land

Don't ask me why I'm thinking of Edward Hopper this week. I read a wonderful  Peter Schjeldahlpiece about him in The New Yorker that says there's an exhibition going on in Switzerland right now. But as the article says, it seems a lot of people are writing and thinking of him anyway, with all the social distancing rules going on.

Hopper's famous painting Nighthawks struck a chord with me the minute I saw it as a child. It was in a book of Hopper's work and I was immediately transfixed by the image: three people in an all-night diner and the cook behind the counter. A couple sits together, the woman wearing the only really bright spot in the entire painting; a beautiful red dress. 

Nearby but not too near, a man sits on his stool, enveloped in shadow. The diner walls are illuminated softly, the shadowy street outside is dark but illuminated too. When I saw the painting later in a museum exhibition, and many of his other paintings, I was hooked. 

Here was a man who understood how alone we are, even in the most public places, and how we deliberately turn away from social contact unless it is with someone we know.  I think I gravitated to Hopper because compositionally he creates so much space for the viewer to enter; backgrounds and paintings can seem simple, but so clear and specific and inviting you can't stop looking at them.

It isn't that I want so much to live in a Hopper painting (though Cape Cod Morning would definitely work for me), but that I feel like we all do, one way or another. I found this quote from Hopper that also struck a chord today."Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and this inner life will result in his personal vision of the world," he said.

This is what I am trying to do with my characters when writing the Beat Street books and what I think all artists are aiming for. His painting House by the Railroad--a solitary Victorian monster of a house that looked similar to a house near the railroad tracks in Garrison, New York--inspired my ghost-story play Alyeska. 

Hopper's paintings are so true, I think, because he was completely true to himself and his own vision when painting. Schjeldahl writes about a time when a critic asked Hopper what his work meant--and he replied, "I'm after ME." I love that--because by being specific about what he sees, he touches all of us. 

I didn't exactly mean to write only about Edward Hopper today, but in doing so, I'm hoping it will inspire you to figure out what artists are speaking to you right now--and why. From time to time, I think it might be fun to write more about my own artistic favorites--and I'm always interested in yours too if you want to share them.

Meanwhile, that Cape Cod Morning feels as fresh and new to me as the morning here, and l can't help but want to stop in, like I do with all of Hopper's paintings. Just for a little while.


Hopper Exhibition Sign: Bruno Cordioli