{"id":281,"date":"2021-11-23T21:33:35","date_gmt":"2021-11-23T21:33:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eportfolios.capilanou.ca\/hiuyeung\/?p=281"},"modified":"2021-12-09T18:34:07","modified_gmt":"2021-12-09T18:34:07","slug":"edward-hopper-the-artist-of-empty-spaces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eportfolios.capilanou.ca\/hiuyeung\/2021\/11\/23\/edward-hopper-the-artist-of-empty-spaces\/","title":{"rendered":"Edward Hopper: The Artist of Empty Spaces"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Self-Portrait<\/strong> Edward Hopper, like many other notable artists, was quite a loner especially at a young age. It was mostly due to his height, as he had an early growth spurt and was taller than six feet by the time he was in his early teens.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Born in 1882, Hopper was the youngest in a family of four and lived a comfortable life in Nyack, New York. He would often sketch boats while sitting by the Hudson River as a child, leading him to build a boat himself and seriously consider a career in naval architecture for a short time. He initially went to the New York School of Illustration for his education as his parents encouraged him to pursue a more commercial route in the industry, but he eventually left to attend the current Parsons School of Design instead. While he got into the field working as an illustrator at the New York Advertising Agency in 1905, Hopper was not satisfied, as his true passion lies in the world of painting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Cat Boat<\/strong> The type of boat Hopper ended up building during his teenage years was a cat boat. Later on, the first ever painting he sold for $250 would also be a piece related to boats, titled Sailing.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Reoccuring Expressions and Motifs<\/h3>\n\n\n\n


Emptiness is a common theme in Hopper’s paintings. Many of his works show couples in an unhealthy relationship, possibly due to his personal marriage issues, where the two would be occupying the same space while their minds wander elsewhere. The themes of isolation are particularly easy to resonate with today, as it echos the sudden shut-downs that COVID-19 has forced upon us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Train and Bathers<\/strong> Hopper took a few trips to Europe that would go on to shape his painterly influences after he went back to New York City and start to gain recognition. He was mainly inspired by Impressionist painters like Degas and Manet as well as the trend of painting en plein-air.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Office in a Small City Department<\/strong> This painting is a great example of many aspects of Hopper’s style: angled buildings with usually one to two people as subjects, with the windows that seemingly dissapear to blend the existence of the interior and exterior environments.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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House on the Railroad <\/strong>Another notable aspect of Hopper’s works is that he was constantly inspired by film and theatre. His creative takes, in turn, influenced future film directors as well as other writers and musicians. House on the Railroad is a prime example, as this was the original inspiration for the classic Alfred Hitchcock move Psycho.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Nighthawks<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Painted in 1942, Nighthawks is Edward Hopper’s most famous work. Featuring four distant and absentminded figures, this painting brings the feeling of void and loneliness to the forefront. The diner lights are the only thing illuminating the scene, while the absence of a door into the building connotates an isolated atmosphere. The streets are gloomy and empty, pointing to the frequent blackout drills that occur throughout the city during a time of war. Personally, I was fascinated by the way Hopper’s paintings could encapsulate a sense of hollowness while still feeling wholly complete, especially in a bustling place like New York City (though apparently when people were searching for this diner in the city, they found that Nighthawk was not a real place at all!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Nighthawk<\/strong> The name of this piece was thought up by Hopper’s wife, Josaphine, who was inspired by the hawk-like nose of the man facing the audience in this painting. Even as an introvert who likes to be alone for extended amounts of time, I can still feel the stillness and slight tension in the air of this painting, where all of the subjects seem to be in the same space but mentally adrift.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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After Hopper’s death, it was thanks to his many sketches and his wife’s journals that we get to see the laborious process he went through for each of his works. Though abstract expressionists like Pollock and Rothko took centre stage nearing the middle of the century, Edward Hopper’s naturalistic style of painting never wavered and remained universally appealing. With his massive influence on society then and now, it is safe to say that Hopper is one of the most iconic figures of art in the 20th century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=lKIbT-4UFaE<\/a>
https:\/\/www.wikiart.org\/en\/edward-hopper<\/a>
https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=mdi4XXl2kUg<\/a>
https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Edward_Hopper
<\/a>https:\/\/www.theartstory.org\/artist\/hopper-edward\/life-and-legacy\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Born in 1882, Hopper was the youngest in a family of four and lived a comfortable life in Nyack, New York. He would often sketch boats while sitting by the Hudson River as a child, leading him to build a boat himself and seriously consider a career in naval architecture for a short time. He… Continue reading Edward Hopper: The Artist of Empty Spaces<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13119,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eportfolios.capilanou.ca\/hiuyeung\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eportfolios.capilanou.ca\/hiuyeung\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eportfolios.capilanou.ca\/hiuyeung\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eportfolios.capilanou.ca\/hiuyeung\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eportfolios.capilanou.ca\/hiuyeung\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/eportfolios.capilanou.ca\/hiuyeung\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":310,"href":"https:\/\/eportfolios.capilanou.ca\/hiuyeung\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281\/revisions\/310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eportfolios.capilanou.ca\/hiuyeung\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eportfolios.capilanou.ca\/hiuyeung\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eportfolios.capilanou.ca\/hiuyeung\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}