{"id":1065,"date":"2015-10-16T22:25:35","date_gmt":"2015-10-16T22:25:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.candelalearning.com\/zelixart102\/?post_type=chapter&p=1065"},"modified":"2016-02-24T22:48:38","modified_gmt":"2016-02-24T22:48:38","slug":"edward-hopper-nighthawks","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/atd-herkimer-arthistory2\/chapter\/edward-hopper-nighthawks\/","title":{"raw":"Edward Hopper, Nighthawks","rendered":"Edward Hopper, Nighthawks"},"content":{"raw":"Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker provide a description, historical perspective, and analysis of Edward Hopper's\u00a0Nighthawks.<\/em>\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/youtu.be\/j24uh8cZ3wA\r\n\r\nEdward Hopper, Nighthawks<\/em>, 1942, oil on canvas, 84.1 \u00d7 152.4 cm \/ 33-1\/8 \u00d7 60 inches (The Art Institute of Chicago)\r\n
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External Link<\/h3>\r\nView this painting up close in the Google Art Project.<\/a>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

Near Misses<\/h2>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1066\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"350\"]\"A Figure 1. Edward Hopper, Nighthawks<\/i>, 1942 (detail)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nIn place of meaningful interactions, the four characters inside the diner of Edward Hopper\u2019s\u00a0Nighthawks<\/em> are involved in a series of near misses.\u00a0The man and woman might be touching hands, but they aren\u2019t.\u00a0The waiter and smoking-man might be conversing, but they\u2019re not.\u00a0The couple might strike up a conversation with the man facing them, but somehow, we know they won\u2019t.\u00a0And then we realize that Hopper has placed us, the viewer, on the city street, with no door to enter the diner, and yet in a position to evaluate each of the people inside.\u00a0We see the row of empty counter stools nearest us.\u00a0We notice that no one is making eye contact with any one else.\u00a0Up close, the waiter\u2019s face appears to have an expression of horror or pain.\u00a0And then there is a chilling revelation: each of us is completely alone in the world.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1068\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"350\"]\"A Figure 2. Edward Hopper, Nighthawks<\/i>, 1942 (detail)[\/caption]\r\n\r\nThe slickness of the paint, which makes the canvas read almost like an advertisement, and immediate accessibility of the subject matter draws the viewer into Hopper\u2019s painting.\u00a0But he does not tell us a story.\u00a0Rather than a narrative about men and women out for a festive night on the town, we are invited to ask questions about the characters\u2019 ambiguous lives.\u00a0Are the man and woman a couple?\u00a0Where are they coming from?\u00a0Where are they going?\u00a0Who is the man with his back to us?\u00a0How did he end up in the diner?\u00a0What is the waiter\u2019s life like? What is causing his distress?\r\n

The Light<\/h2>\r\nBy setting the scene on one of New York City\u2019s oblique corners and surrounding the diner with glass, Hopper was able to exploit stark pictorial devices.\u00a0First, the fluorescent light flooding the diner is the only light that illuminates the painting; in the absence of a streetlamp, it spills into the night through both windows onto both sides of the street corner.\u00a0It throws a series of cast shadows onto the sidewalk and apartment buildings, but ultimately draws our attention back to the men and woman inside the diner.\u00a0The angle also allows him to show the people in a mix of frontal and profile views, heightening the sense that no figure is really communicating with another.\r\n\r\nThis feeling can be understood by comparing Nighthawks<\/em> to Hopper\u2019s earlier painting Early Sunday Morning<\/em><\/a>. Both paintings are set in front of the red brick apartments of New York\u2019s Greenwich Village and show us an hour of the day when people are typically not awake.\u00a0LikeNighthawks<\/em>, which was created at the beginning of America\u2019s involvement in World War II,\u00a0Early Sunday Morning<\/em> was also painted at a historically important moment, the beginning of the Great Depression.\u00a0But despite their similarities, Early Sunday Morning<\/em> produces a sense of ease in the viewer, not anxiety.\r\n\r\nPartially, this is because of the flooding light of dawn. But Early Sunday Morning<\/em>, with its frilly awnings, brightly colored barber\u2019s pole, squat fire hydrant, and windows opening to meet the morning sun, presents a world that is about to bustle with life.\u00a0Nighthawks<\/em> shows the opposite.\u00a0The windows of the shops and apartments are empty and dark.\u00a0The only remnants of human activity outside the diner are a cash register in a shop window and a cigar advertisement above the glass pane.\u00a0There is no clock in the restaurant, but the empty coffee tureens on the back counter betray the indecent hour of night.\u00a0This is a world shut down. Because our characters are awake, they are alienated\u2014not only from each other, but also from civilization itself.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1071\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"561\"]\"A Figure 3. Edward Hopper, Nighthawks<\/i>, 1942 (detail)[\/caption]\r\n

A Timeless Feel<\/h2>\r\nNighthawks<\/em> is one of Hopper\u2019s New York City paintings, and the artist said that it was based on a real caf\u00e9.\u00a0Many people have tried to find the exact setting of the painting, but have failed.\u00a0In his wife\u2019s diaries, she wrote that she and Hopper himself both served as models for the people in the painting.\u00a0Despite these real-life details, the empty composition and flat, abstracting planes of color give the canvas a timeless feel, making it an object onto which one can project one\u2019s own reality.\u00a0Perhaps this is why it has lent itself to so well to many parodies, even appearing as a motif on an episode of The Simpsons.<\/em>\r\n\r\nWhen it was completed the canvas was bought almost immediately by the Art Institute of Chicago where it remains, and has been wildly popular ever since.\u00a0The painting\u2019s modern-day appeal can also be understood because of its ability to evoke a sense of nostalgia for an America of a time gone-by.\u00a0Despite its inherent universality, the dress of the four people\u2014the woman evoking a pin-up doll, the men in their well-tailored suits and hats, the worker in his soda jerk costume\u2014as well as the \u201cPhillies\u201d advertisement, firmly plant the painting in a simpler past, making it a piece of Americana.\r\n

A Subtle Critique<\/h2>\r\nBut perhaps Nighthawks\u2019<\/em> enduring popularity can be explained because of its subtle critique of the modern world, the world in which we all live.\u00a0Despite its surface beauty, this world is one measured in cups of coffee, imbued with an overwhelming sense of loneliness, and a deep desire, but ultimate inability, to connect with those around us.","rendered":"

Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker provide a description, historical perspective, and analysis of Edward Hopper’s\u00a0Nighthawks.<\/em><\/p>\n