Edward Hopper: Light and Dark

by Gerry Souter, Parkstone Press

Edward Hopper, born in Nyack in 1882, remains one of the most important American painters. After studying to be an illustrator, he entered the famous New York School of Art, where he studied under the direction of Robert Henri, whose influence on Hoppers work was fundamental, as he was the one who encouraged Hopper to paint scenes from American life. In his works, Hopper poetically expressed the solitude of man confronted to the American way of life as it developed in the 1920s. Inspired by the movies and particularly by the various camera angles and attitudes of characters, his paintings expose the alienation of mass culture. Done in cold colours and inhabited by anonymous characters, Hoppers paintings also symbolically reflect the Great Depression. Despite his numerous trips to Europe, he remained impervious to the major trends revolutionizing painting at the time, such as cubism or surrealism. Dedicated to a very personal approach to his subjects, he modelled himself on classical painters, such as Rembrandt, Degas, or Daumier.His paintings of gas stations, motels, and scenes from everyday life represent an aesthetic testimony to individualism, wide open spaces, and the fundamental values of the American nation. He died in 1967, leaving behind a definitive imprint on American art.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Art History

256 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2007

Reviews

[Georgiana 1792 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Si tratta di una biografia molto scarna, più che altro basata sulle opere di Hopper - che abbondano - prima anno per anno e poi decennio per decennio, e sui suoi spostamenti alla ricerca di soggetti da dipingere. Il suo rapporto con Jo non è descritto in profondità, ma si coglie tutta la prepotenza e l'egocentrismo di Hopper (quando, per esempio, Jo era stressata e trovava conforto solo nella pittura, ma lui la relegava in cucina oppure la costringeva a posare pur di non farla dipingere, o la sua possessività con la macchina, la Dodge del 1925, acquistata dopo aver venduto l'olio Two on the Aisle).
He always came back to the sea and shore throughout his life, back to the big sky continuously redrawing itself in white on blue from opal pale to dangerous cerulean, and the surf-shaped rocks fronting long sweeps of dunes topped by hissing grasses.
[Nell'arco di tutta la vita tornò sempre al mare e alla costa, al grande cielo che si ridisegnava in continuazione in bianco o azzurro, dal pallido opale al pericoloso ceruleo, e alle rocce plasmate dalle onde che fronteggiavano lunghe distese di dune sormontate da erbe fruscianti.]
E, in effetti, non c'è estate che gli Hopper non tornino sul mare, in New England, soprattutto a Gloucester in Massachusetts e a Truro, vicino Cape Cod, in Maine.
Sparse tra i capitoli ci sono le tavole di alcune delle opere di Hopper, ma ho trovato davvero difficile andarle a cercare, visto che non erano inserite in ordine cronologico, né si potevano linkare (opzione che con l'ebook sarebbe stata auspicabile!). E così ho dovuto leggere con il telefono a portata di mano per analizzare via via le varie opere di cui si parlava, il che mi ha portato via molto più tempo del previsto, ma mi ha fatto anche osservare i quadri con più attenzione.
E ieri sera, guardando il film americano Stanno tutti bene - Everybody's Fine con Robert De Niro, remake del film di Tornatore del 1990, ho notato come il regista Kirk Jones e il direttore della fotografia Henry Braham abbiano voluto descrivere la solitudine e lo straniamento di Frank Goode (De Niro) attraverso scene che avrebbero potuto essere dipinte davvero da Hopper.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Someone looking for an introduction to Edward Hopper's life and work would do well to pick up this brisk artistic and personal biography. The biography is useful, but the main attraction is the nearly 150 attractive reproductions of his etchings, watercolors, and oils (plus a few works by other artists).

Two features make this book worth less than a fully enthusiastic endorsement. First, the reproductions of the artwork are not located near the text in which they are described, making it difficult to easily view a work one is reading about. The art is not chronologically ordered through the book either, so you can't page through the book and get a sense for artistic development. There's some hint at a thematic grouping (there are a cluster of paintings of theatres; a cluster of gas stations), but since the book is written chronologically this is not especially helpful.

The second disappointment is that the author's misogyny rivals Hopper's own, specifically in reference to Hopper's wife Josephine. Josephine, like Hopper, was an artist, but her ambitions took a backseat to her husband's, and she was vital to his art and his career. Especially disturbing was the last sentence of the book, which is not about Hopper, but about his wife: "Josephine Nivison Hopper's bequeathed body of work was discarded as having no value at all."

[Britt, Book Habitue · Rating 3 out of 5]

I admittedly don't know enough about Hopper to gauge the factual accuracy, but there were certainly grammatical errors. An interesting look at the artist, though.

[Samuel Valentino · Rating 3 out of 5]

I knew nothing about Hopper, other than his painting "Nighthawks," so was initially glad when I came across this book. As for the art, the book is full of color reproductions, which does display the work well. As for the writing, the author seemed to write the most about the paintings that weren't in the book. Fortunately, I could just look them up online. Seeing them after reading their description, I almost thought the reproductions were left out deliberately, so that the text couldn't be compared to the painting. To give one example, he describes the painting "New York Office" as evoking the works of Hans Hofmann for abstraction; the actual painting looks pretty straightforward representational to me. The closest you could come on some of them are the ones about empty rooms - the geometric shapes of the architecture could theoretically be related to the squares of Albers, but solely because they both have polygons in them, not due to any stylistic affinity. The descriptions of the paintings actually in the book seemed more spot on with art interpretation.

Nonetheless, it did give a good overview of his body of work. Oddly, works from over his whole life were interspersed throughout the whole book, instead of chronologically. Even more odd is that I found myself enjoying it by the end of the book - a painting from the 20's would show up, and I'd think, "this looks like his earlier work," and then saw it was when I read the caption. So it was inadvertantly a lesson in identifying the artist's range.

Here's the major negative of the book, which was not the author's fault. The book did give a good account of his life, which in some ways was unfortunate, because Hopper sounds like he was personally a horrible man. The author kept referring to abuses listed by Hopper's wife in her diary and letters, while hinting that some of them were physical. It almost would have been better if the author had been more specific, since the hints make it seem terrible, giving me little room for doubt. If the author was trying to downplay Hopper's offenses, he did not do a very good job. I found myself wanting to like the work, but then not wanting to, because of how awful Hopper was.

So after reading it, I was a lot more ambivalent toward Hopper, but as a book it was a good overview of his art. To learn about the artist it was really good, but I was a bit less impressed with the artist after reading it.

[Steven Hull · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edward Hopper is a large format, inexpensive book ($20 full price). For one reason alone it is worth buying. The reproductions of the large number of Hopper’s paintings and etchings found in the book are of high quality. Without reading a word of the narrative and only looking at the pictures, the ‘reader’ can have a very pleasant artistic experience.

The book, however, is much more than a collection of Hopper’s works. Souter’s chronological narrative of Hopper’s life is excellent. This narrative gives historical context to Hopper’s work. We learn about his privileged upbringing; his marriage to a fellow artist and their stormy, life-long relationship; and the patterns of his life, which fed and at times hindered his chosen profession.

Born near the end of the 19th century in New York, Hopper was a witness to the emergence of the United States as a world power economically, politically, and culturally. Hopper developed and honed an artistic style he saw as part of the realism school. Others thought his mature style mimicked the impressionists, which always grated on Hopper. Regardless, Hopper remained a popular, if unclassified artist throughout the latter half of his life. Today this popularity does not seemed to have waned either.

Hopper did not achieve financial and artistic success until he passed the age of forty. This brought him freedom to practice his craft full time. Yet, his pattern of life remained unchanged for the most part. He lived well with in his means. His lifestyle remained frugal and simple. He lived to paint and he continued to do so until his death in May 1967.

The author notes that Pulitzer Prize winning poet Mark Strand characterized Hopper’s paintings as a moment in time that provoked the viewer to project what had transpired before and after the moment Hopper captured on canvas. This framework for understanding Hopper supports the artist’s point that his art was never about design, color, or form. It was about life, its physical and human landscapes, its journeys, its disappointments, and its sometimes unpredictable but always interesting directions.

[Theos Imeres · Rating 4 out of 5]

Não gostei muito dos textos, mas de maneira geral é um bom apanhado sobre a vida e a obra do Hopper.

[Oval Tine · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a UK tourist in Chicago I was drawn to Nighthawks and this beautiful book has me looking forward to my next trip yo New York to see more of his work

[KA · Rating 2 out of 5]

He gets such basic facts wrong that you don't know what to trust anymore.

The reproductions are okay, though.