Edward Hopper: Capturing Private, Solitary Moments

One particular of my favourites is Automat an oil painted by him in 1927.

A young woman with a yellow felt hat credit card points sits totally alone in a barren restaurant drinking a cup of coffee. I look at this and quickly really feel her isolation and loneliness as if i...

I have a fascination with the paintings of the American artist, Edward Hopper. Somehowwhether by approach, imagination or subject matterhe is in a position to generate the most compelling and evocative scenes, which stir my imagination.

A single of my favourites is Automat an oil painted by him in 1927.

A young lady with a yellow felt hat sits absolutely alone in a barren restaurant drinking a cup of coffee. I look at this and right away feel her isolation and loneliness as if it had been my own. Is she operating away? What thoughts are in her thoughts as she stares into the cup?

Appropriate away, Hopper has got us speculating, as he does with all his paintings. Where did she come from? Exactly where is she going? You happen to be caught right in the middle of a story which you can "read" backwards or forwards in time. I was so taken with this painting that the lady in it became the inspiration for a character in a brief story, The Thief, and now a novel which I am writing. Struck by her isolation and self containment, I known as her Celia.

I search the painting to see what emotions Hopper creates and how he does it. Behind the solitary woman is a large window, blackened by an impenetrably gloomy night. The lights or reflections of lights recede into the background giving a murky, tunnel-like effect, leading to nowhere. The radiator, crouching at the left of the painting, seems just as isolated as the girl in the composition, but almost principles looks a lot more communicative than her. The lonely, solitary moment is caught in timepermanently engraved on my mind.

Just believe how a lot of stories could develop from this a single painting! Will an individual, a boyfriend or family members member enter that door, hoping to bring her back? If no one comes, exactly where will she go as soon as she drinks her coffee? To a dingy hotel space? Onto a train to New York? That would be just like so a lot of other Hopper paintings, which so usually depict hotel lobbies, motels and railway vehicles. Or perhaps she will adjust her mind and go back property.

Perhaps this painting speaks to me of the apprehension of the unknown as we proceed moment to moment via life. So frequently, we are unsure and tentative, fearing to venture out into the unfamiliar. Then again, possibly the girl is incapable of reaching out to others. Right after all, for me, Celia the character in my story who was inspired by this painting grew into a character that was desperate to get totally free of her self-imposed isolation from the globe. And so, for me art, painting, sculpture, and photography are so typically an inspiration for writing. Of course, all art [whether or not it is painting or writing or music] speaks of its own time that is, the time and spot in which the artist lived.

Hopper painted significantly of his function in the twenties, thirties and forties of the final century, when rapid industrialization and urbanization were forcing folks from their old dwellings and old techniques of living. Consequently, so many people felt lost and displaced. And however, the emotions evoked by his function are universal, whatever frequent flyer program the time and spot. Fantastic art transcends time and spot and touches a nerve in us all, which communicates these universal emotions and ideas to us. Just like a photograph, Automat is a permanent moment in time current in a globe which, at the exact same time, seems so transient.

And that is why such a painting as the Automat inspires me even right now.