American realism

American realism was an early 20th century idea in art, music and literature that showed through these different types of work, reflections of the time period. Whether it was a cultural portrayal, or a scenic view of downtown New York City, these images and works of literature, music and painting depicted a contemporary view of what was happening; an attempt at defining what was real. In America at the beginning of the 20th century a new generation of painters, writers and journalists were coming of age. Many of the painters felt the influence of older American artists such as Thomas Eakins, Mary Cassatt,John Singer Sargent, James McNeill Whistler, Winslow Homer, Childe Hassam, J. Alden Weir, Thomas Pollock Anshutz, and William Merritt Chase. However they were interested in creating new and more urbane works that reflected city life and a population that was more urban than rural in America as it entered the new century.

Edward Hopper
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Edward Hopper

Edward Hopper, Self-Portrait, 1906 Born July 22, 1882 Nyack, New York May 15, 1967 (aged 84) New York City American Painting Automat (1927) Chop Suey (1929) Nighthawks (1942) Office in a Small City (1953) Robert Henri

Died

Nationality Field Works

Influenced by

Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 May 15, 1967) was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching. In both his urban and rural scenes, his spare and finely calculated renderings reflected his personal vision of modern American life.[1]

Biography
[edit]Early

life

Hopper was born in upper Nyack, New York, a yacht-building center on the Hudson River north of New York City. He was one of two children of a comfortably well-off, middle-class family. His parents, of mostly Dutch ancestry, were Garret Henry Hopper, a dry-goods merchant, and his wife Elizabeth Griffiths Smith.[2] Though not as successful as his forebears, Garrett provided well for his two children with considerable help from his wifes inheritance. He retired at age forty-nine.[3] Edward and his only sister Marion attended both private and public schools. They were raised in a strict Baptist home.[4] His father had a mild nature, and the household was dominated by women: Hopper's mother, grandmother, sister, and maid.[5] His birthplace and boyhood home was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000. Today the house is the Edward Hopper House Art Center.[6] It serves as a non-profit community cultural center featuring exhibitions, workshops, lectures, performances and special events.[7] Hopper was a good student in grade school and showed talent in drawing at age five. He readily absorbed his fathers intellectual tendencies and love of French andRussian culture. He also demonstrated his mothers artistic heritage.[8] Hoppers parents encouraged his art and kept him amply supplied with materials, instructional magazines, and illustrated books. By his teens, he was working in pen-and-ink, charcoal, watercolor, and oil

drawing from nature as well as making political cartoons.[9] In 1895, he created his first signed oil painting, Rowboat in Rocky Cove. It showed his early interest in nautical subjects.[10] In his early self-portraits, Hopper tended to represent himself as skinny, ungraceful, and homely. Though a tall and quiet teenager, his prankish sense of humor found outlet in his art, sometimes in depictions of immigrants or of women dominating men in comic situations. Later in life, he depicted mostly women as figures in his paintings.[11] In high school, he dreamed of being a naval architect, but after graduation he declared his intention to follow an art career. Hoppers parents insisted that he study commercial art to have a reliable means of income.[12] In developing his self-image and individualistic philosophy of life, Hopper was influenced by the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. He later said, I admire him greatly I read him over and over again.[13] Hopper began art studies with a correspondence course in 1899. Soon, however, he transferred to the New York Institute of Art and Design. There he studied for six years, with teachers including William Merritt Chase, who instructed him in oil painting.[12] Early on, Hopper modeled his style after Chase and French mastersdouard Manet and Edgar Degas.[14] Sketching from live models proved a challenge and a shock for the conservatively raised Hopper. Another of his teachers, artist Robert Henri, taught life class. Henri encouraged his students to use their art to "make a stir in the world". He also advised his students, It isnt the subject that counts but what you feel about it and Forget about art and paint pictures of what interests you in life.[12] In this manner, Henri influenced Hopper, as well as notable future artists George Bellows and Rockwell Kent. He encouraged them to imbue a modern spirit in their work. Some artists in Henri's circle, including John Sloan, became members of The Eight, also known as the Ashcan School of American Art.[15] Hopper's first existing oil painting to hint at his

famous interiors was Solitary Figure in a Theater (c.1904).[16] During his student years, he also painted dozens of nudes, still lifes, landscapes, and portraits, including his self-portraits.[17] In 1905, Hopper landed a part-time job with an advertising agency, where he did cover designs for trade magazines.[18] Much like famed illustrator N. C. Wyeth, Hopper came to detest illustration. He was bound to it by economic necessity until the mid-1920s.[19] He temporarily escaped by making three trips to Europe, each centered in Paris, ostensibly to study the emerging art scene there. In fact, however, he studied alone and seemed mostly unaffected by the new currents in art. Later he said that he didnt remember having heard of Picasso at all.[15] He was highly impressed by Rembrandt, particularly his Night Watch, which he said was the most wonderful thing of his I have seen; its past belief in its reality.[20] Hopper began painting urban and architectural scenes in a dark palette. Then he shifted to the lighter palette of the Impressionists before returning to the darker palette with which he was comfortable. Hopper later said, "I got over that and later things done in Paris were more the kind of things I do now.[21] Hopper spent much of his time drawing street and caf scenes, and going to the theater and opera. Unlike many of his contemporaries who imitated the abstract cubist experiments, Hopper was attracted to realist art. Later, he admitted to no European influences other than French engraver Charles Mryon, whose moody Paris scenes Hopper imitated.[22]

Hoppers art
[edit]Personality

and vision

Always reluctant to discuss himself and his art, Hopper simply summed up his art by stating, The whole answer is there on the canvas.[43] Hopper

was stoic and fatalistica quiet introverted man with a gentle sense of humor and a frank manner. Conservative in politics and social matters, he accepted things as they were and displayed a lack of idealism. Cultured and sophisticated, he was well-read, and many of his paintings show figures reading.[47] He was generally good company and unperturbed by silences, though sometimes taciturn, grumpy or detached. He was always serious about his art and the art of others, and when asked would return frank opinions.[48] Hopper's most systematic declaration of his philosophy as an artist was given in a handwritten note, titled "Statement", submitted in 1953 to the journal, Reality:

Though Hopper claimed that he didnt consciously embed psychological meaning in his paintings, he was deeply interested in Freud and the power of the subconscious mind. He wrote in 1939, So much of every art is an expression of the subconscious that it seems to me most of all the important qualities are put there unconsciously, and little of importance by the conscious intellect.[50] [edit]Methods Although he is best known for his oil paintings, Hopper initially achieved recognition for his watercolours and he also produced some commercially successfuletchings. Additionally, his notebooks contain high-quality pen and pencil sketches, which were never meant for public viewing. Hopper paid particular attention to geometrical design and the careful placement of human figures in proper balance with their environment. He was a slow and methodical artist; as he wrote, It takes a long time for an

idea to strike. Then I have to think about it for a long time. I dont start painting until I have it all worked out in my mind. Im all right when I get to the easel".[51] He often made preparatory sketches to work out his carefully calculated compositions. He and his wife kept a detailed ledger of their works noting such items as sad face of woman unlit, electric light from ceiling, and thighs cooler.[52] For New York Movie (1939), Hopper demonstrates his thorough preparation with more than 53 sketches of the theater interior and the figure of the pensive usherette.[53] The effective use of light and shadow to create mood is also central to Hoppers methods. Bright sunlight (as an emblem of insight or revelation), and the shadows it casts, also play symbolically powerful roles in Hopper paintings such as Early Sunday Morning (1930), Summertime (1943), Seven A.M. (1948), and Sun in an Empty Room (1963). His use of light and shadow effects have been compared to the cinematography of film noir.[54] Though a realist painter, Hoppers soft realism simplified shapes and details. He used saturated color to heighten contrast and create mood.

Subjects and themes

Girl at Sewing Machine (1921).

Hopper derived his subject matter from two primary sources: one, the common features of American life (gas stations, motels, restaurants, theaters, railroads, and street scenes) and its inhabitants; and two, seascapes and rural landscapes. Regarding his style, Hopper defined himself as an amalgam of many races and not a member of any school, particularly the Ashcan School.[55] Once Hopper achieved his mature style, his art remained consistent and self-contained, in spite of the numerous art trends that came and went during his long career.[55] Hoppers seascapes fall into three main groups: pure landscapes of rocks, sea, and beach grass; lighthouses and farmhouses; and sailboats. Sometimes he combined these elements. Most of these paintings depict strong light and fair weather; he showed little interest in snow or rain

scenes, or in seasonal color changes. He painted the majority of the pure seascapes in the period between 1916 and 1919 on Monhegan Island. [56] Hoppers The Long Leg (1935) is a nearly all-blue sailing picture with the simplest of elements, while his Ground Swell (1939) is more complex and depicts a group of youngsters out for a sail, a theme reminiscent of Winslow Homers iconic Breezing Up (1876).[57] Urban architecture and cityscapes were also major subjects for Hopper. He was fascinated with the American urban scene, our native architecture with its hideous beauty, its fantastic roofs, pseudo-gothic, French Mansard, Colonial, mongrel or what not, with eye-searing color or delicate harmonies of faded paint, shouldering one another along interminable streets that taper off into swamps or dump heaps. [58] In 1925, he produced House by the Railroad. This classic work depicts an isolated Victorian wood mansion, partly obscured by the raised embankment of a railroad. It marked Hoppers artistic maturity. Critic Lloyd Goodrich praised the work as one of the most poignant and desolating pieces of realism.[59] The work is the first of a series of stark rural and urban scenes that uses sharp lines and large shapes, played upon by unusual lighting to capture the lonely mood of his subjects. Though critics and viewers interpret meaning and mood in these cityscapes, Hopper insisted I was more interested in the sunlight on the buildings and on the figures than any symbolism.[60] As if to prove the point, his late painting Sun in an Empty Room (1963) is a pure study of sunlight.[61] Most of Hopper's figure paintings focus on the subtle interaction of human beings with their environmentcarried out with solo figures, couples, or groups. His primary emotional themes are solitude, loneliness, regret, boredom, and resignation. He expresses the emotions in various environments, including the office, in public places, in apartments, on the road, or on vacation.[62] As if he were creating stills for a movie or tableaux

in a play, Hopper positioned his characters as if they were captured just before or just after the climax of a scene.[63] Hoppers solitary figures are mostly womendressed, semi-clad, and nude often reading or looking out a window, or in the workplace. In the early 1920s, Hopper painted his first such pictures Girl at Sewing Machine (1921), New York Interior (another woman sewing) (1921), and Moonlight Interior (a nude getting into bed) (1923). However, Automat (1927) and Hotel Room (1931) are more representative of his mature style, emphasizing the solitude more overtly.[64] As Hopper scholar Gail Levin wrote of Hotel Room:

Hoppers Room in New York (1932) and Cape Cod Evening (1939) are prime examples of his couple paintings. In the first, a young couple appear alienated and uncommunicativehe reading the newspaper while she idles by the piano. The viewer takes on the role of a voyeur, as if looking with a telescope through the window of the apartment to spy on the couples lack of intimacy. In the latter painting, an older couple with little to say to each other, are playing with their dog, whose own attention is drawn away from his masters.[66] Hopper takes the couple theme to a more ambitious level with Excursion into Philosophy (1959). A middle-aged man sits dejectedly on the edge of a bed. Beside him lays an open book and a partially clad female. A shaft of light illuminates the floor in front of him. Jo Hopper noted in their log book, [T]he open book is Plato, reread too late. Levin interprets the painting:

In Office at Night (1940), another couple painting, Hopper creates a

psychological puzzle. The painting shows a man focusing on his work papers, while nearby his attractive female secretary pulls a file. Several studies for the painting show how Hopper experimented with the positioning of the two figures, perhaps to heighten theeroticism and the tension. Hopper presents the viewer with the possibilities that the man is either truly uninterested in the woman's appeal or that he is working hard to ignore her. Another interesting aspect of the painting is how Hopper employs three light sources,[66] from a desk lamp, through a window and indirect light from above. Hopper went on to make several office pictures, but none with a sensual undercurrent.

Nighthawks (1942).

The best-known of Hopper's paintings, Nighthawks (1942), is one of his paintings of groups. It shows customers sitting at the counter of an allnight diner. The shapes and diagonals are carefully constructed. The viewpoint is cinematicfrom the sidewalk, as if the viewer were approaching the restaurant. The diner's harsh electric light sets it apart from the dark night outside, enhancing the mood and subtle emotion.[68] As in many Hopper paintings, the interaction is minimal. The restaurant depicted was inspired by one in Greenwich Village. Both Hopper and his wife posed for the figures, and Jo Hopper gave the painting its title. The

inspiration for the picture may have come fromErnest Hemingways short story The Killers, which Hopper greatly admired, or from the more philosophical A Clean, Well-Lighted Place.[69] In keeping with the title of his painting, Hopper later said, Nighthawks has more to do with the possibility of predators in the night than with loneliness.[70] His second most recognizable painting after Nighthawks is another urban painting,Early Sunday Morning (originally called Seventh Avenue Shops), which shows an empty street scene in sharp side light, with a fire hydrant and a barber pole as stand-ins for human figures. Originally Hopper intended to put figures in the upstairs windows but left them empty to heighten the feeling of desolation.[71] Hopper's rural New England scenes, such as Gas (1940), are no less meaningful. "Gas" represents "a different, equally clean, well-lighted refuge.... ke[pt] open for those in need as they navigate the night, traveling their own miles to go before they sleep."[72] The work presents a fusion of several Hopper themes: the solitary figure, the melancholy of dusk, and the lonely road.[73] Hopper approaches Surrealism with Rooms by the Sea (1951), where an open door gives on to the ocean, without an apparent ladder or steps.[74] After his student years, Hoppers nudes were all female. Unlike past artists who painted the female nude to glorify the female form and to highlight female eroticism, Hopper's nudes are solitary women who are psychologically exposed.[75] One audacious exception is Girlie Show (1941), where a red-headed strip-tease queen strides confidently across a stage to the accompaniment of the musicians in the pit. Girlie Show was inspired by Hopper's visit to a burlesque show a few days earlier. Hoppers wife, as usual, posed for him for the painting, and noted in her diary, Ed beginning a new canvasa burlesque queen doing a strip teaseand I posing without a stitch on in front of the stove-nothing but high heels in a lottery dance pose.[76]

Hopper's portraits and self-portraits were relatively few after his student years.[77] Hopper did produce a commissioned portrait of a house, The MacArthurs Home(1939) , where he faithfully details the Victorian architecture of the home of actress Helen Hayes. She reported later, I guess I never met a more misanthropic, grumpy individual in my life. Hopper grumbled throughout the project and never again accepted a commission.[78] Hopper also painted Portrait of Orleans (1950), a portrait of the Cape Cod town from its main street.[79] Though very interested in the American Civil War and Mathew Bradys battlefield photographs, Hopper made only two historical pictures. Both depicted soldiers on their way to Gettysburg.[80] Also rare among his themes are paintings showing action. The best example of an action painting is Bridle Path (1939), but Hoppers struggle with the proper anatomy of the horses may have discouraged him from similar attempts.[81] Hoppers final oil painting, Two Comedians (1966), painted one year before his death, focuses on his love of the theater. Two French pantomime actors, one male and one female, both dressed in bright white costumes, take their bow in front of a darkened stage. Jo Hopper confirmed that her husband intended the figures to suggest their taking their life's last bows together as husband and wife.[82] Hopper's paintings have often been seen by others as having a narrative or thematic content that the artist himself may not have intended. Much meaning can be added to a painting by its title, but the titles of Hopper's paintings were sometimes chosen by others, or were selected by Hopper and his wife in a way that makes it unclear whether they have any real connection with the artist's meaning. For example, Hopper once told an interviewer that he was "fond of Early Sunday Morning... but it wasn't necessarily Sunday. That word was tacked on later by someone else."[83] The tendency to read thematic or narrative content into Hopper's paintings, that Hopper himself had not intended, extended even to his wife. When Jo

Hopper commented on the figure in Cape Cod Morning Its a woman looking out to see if the weathers good enough to hang out her wash, Hopper retorted, Did I say that? Youre making it Norman Rockwell. From my point of view shes just looking out the window.[84] Another example of the same phenomenon is recorded in a 1948 article in Time:

Automat (painting)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Automat

Artist

Edward Hopper

Year Type

1927 Oil on canvas

Dimensions 71.4 cm 91.4 cm (28 in 36 in) Location Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines

Automat (1927) is a painting by Edward Hopper which portrays a lone woman staring into a cup of coffee in an Automat at night. The reflection of identical rows of light fixtures stretches out through the night-blackened window. As is often the case in Hopper's paintings, both the woman's circumstances and her mood are ambiguous. She is well-dressed and is wearing makeup, which could indicate either that she is on her way to or from work at a job where personal appearance is important, or that she is on her way to or from a social occasion. She has removed only one glove, which may indicate either that she is distracted, that she is in a hurry and can stop only for a moment, or simply that she has just come in from outside, and has not yet warmed up. The time of yearlate autumn or winteris evident from the fact that the woman is warmly dressed. But the time of day is unclear, since days are short at this time of year. It is possible, for example, that it is just after sunset, and early enough in the evening that the automat could be the spot at which she has arranged to rendezvous with a friend. Or it could be late at night, after the woman has completed a shift at work. Or again, it could be early in the morning, before sunrise, as a shift is about to start. Whatever the hour, the restaurant appears to be largely empty and there are no signs of activity (or of any life at all) on the street outside. This adds to the sense of loneliness, and has caused the painting to be popularly associated with the concept of urban alienation. One critic has observed

that, in a pose typical of Hopper's melancholic subjects, "the woman's eyes are downcast and her thoughts turned inward." [1]Another critic has described her as "gazing at her coffee cup as if it were the last thing in the world she could hold on to." [2] In 1995, Time magazine used Automatas the cover image for a story about stress and depression in the 20th century. [3] The pose is reminiscent of Edgar Degas's L'Absinthealthough unlike the subject in Degas' painting, the woman is introspective, rather than dissipated. In an innovative twist, Hopper made the womans legs the brightest spot in the painting, thereby turning her into an object of desire and making the viewer a voyeur.[4]By todays standards this description seems overstated, but in 1927 the public display of womens legs was still a relatively novel phenomenon. The presence of a chairback in the lower right-hand corner of the canvas suggests that the viewer is sitting at a nearby table, from which vantage-point a stranger might be able to glance, uninvited, upon the woman. Hopper would make the crossed legs of a female subject the brightest spot on an otherwise dark canvas in a number of later paintings, including Compartment C, Car 293 (1938)[1] and Hotel Lobby (1943).[2] [5] The female subject of his 1931 painting, Barber Shop,[3] is also in a pose similar to the woman in Automat, and the viewer's image of her is similarly bisected by a table. But the placing of the subject in a bright, populated place, at midday, makes the woman less isolated and vulnerable, and hence the viewer's gaze seems less intrusive. Hoppers paintings are frequently built around a vignette that unfolds as the viewer gazes into a window, or out through a window. Sometimes, as in Railroad Sunset(1929),[4] Nighthawks (1942) and Office in a Small City (1953), it is still possible to see details of the scene beyond even after Hopper has guided the viewers gaze through two panes of glass. When Hopper wishes to obscure the view, he tends to position the window at a sharp angle to the viewers vantage-point, or to block the view with curtains

or blinds. Another favourite techniqueused, for example, in Conference at Night (1949)[5]is to use bright light, flooding in from the exterior at a sharp angle from the sun or from an unseen streetlight, to illuminate a few mundane details within inches of the far side of the window, thereby throwing the deeper reaches of the view into shadow. By contrast, in Automat the window dominates the painting, and yet conveys no information at all about the world outside, other than the fact that it is night. The complete blackness outside is a departure both from Hoppers usual techniques, and from realism, since a New York street at night is full of light from cars and street lamps. This complete emptiness allows the reflections from the interior to stand out more dramatically, and intensifies the viewers focus upon the woman. The focusing effect of the blank window behind the woman can be seen most clearly when it is contrasted with Sunlight in a Cafeteria (1958),[6] one of Hoppers late paintings. In this painting, a female and a male subject sit in an otherwise empty cafeteria in spots reminiscent of the tables occupied, respectively, by the female subject and the viewer in Automat. But in Sunlight in a Cafeteria, the well-illuminated street scene outside the large window seemingly distracts the man's attention from his counterpart, so that the two subjects do not seem to be acting in the same scene, as it were.[6] By contrast, in Automat the viewer is fully engaged by the presence of the woman.

Chop Suey (painting)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chop Suey

Artist Year Type

Edward Hopper 1929 Oil on canvas

Dimensions 81.3 cm 96.5 cm (32 in 38 in) Location Collection of Barney A. Ebsworth

This article relies largely or entirely upon a single source. Please help improve this article by introducing citations to additional sources. Discussion about the problems with the sole source used may be found on the talk page. (January 2011)
Chop Suey (1929) is a painting by Edward Hopper which portrays two women in conversation at a restaurant. According to some art scholars, one "striking detail of Chop Suey is that its female subject faces her doppelgnger." [1] Others have pointed out it would not be so unusual for two women to be wearing similar hats, and that it is presumptuous to claim doppelgngers when one of subject's face is not visible to the viewer.
[2]

As with many of Hopper's works, the painting features a close attention to the effects of light on his subjects.

A similar painting, Composition I was completed by Mark Rothko in 1931. A bumper played on the cable channel Turner Classic Movies, titled The Sunny Side of Life, was inspired by Chop Suey and other Hopper paintings.