Joseph Evans
Nighthawks by Edward Hopper
Siebert
Realism is the interest in or concern for the actual or real, Edward Hopper's Nighthawks captures this. Edward Hopper was born in Nyack, New York 1882 and died in 1967. His family encourages his artistic abilities. After graduating from high school, he studied briefly at the Correspondence School of Illustrating in New York City and enrolled in classes at New York School of Art. With his shift from illustration to fine arts, he studied with William Chase a leading American Impressionist painter. Nighthawks was created in 1942 on an oil canvas then it was sold to the Art Institute of Chicago. Nighthawks portrays people sitting in a downtown diner late at night with a man sitting on the corner and husband and wife at the end. The realist, historical, and background contexts contributed to the creation of Nighthawks.
Realism is interest in or concern for the actual or as distinguished from the abstract. Edward Hopper was one of the top realist painters. As a realist Hopper had many successes. In 1933, Hopper received further critical recognition as the subject of a retrospective exhibition held at the Museum of Modern Art. He was by then celebrated for his highly identifiable mature style, in which urban settings, New England landscapes, and interiors are all pervaded by a sense of silence and estrangement. Jessica Murphy explains, "His chosen locations are often vacant of human activity, and they frequently imply the transitory nature of contemporary life. At deserted gas stations, railroad tracks, and bridges, the idea of travel is fraught with loneliness and mystery. Other scenes are inhabited only by a single pensive figure or by a pair of figures who seem not to communicate with one another. These people are rarely represented in their own homes; instead, they pass time in the temporary shelter of movie theaters, hotel rooms, or restaurants." In Hopper painting the Nighthawks customers and the waiter are in a brightly lit interior of a city diner at night. They appear lost in their own weariness and private concerns their wandering thoughts might be the wartime anxiety felt by the nation as a whole. As a realist Hopper had many successes. The people in the painting appear lost in their own weariness and private concerns. The disconnection to their reality perhaps the period of the nation's wartime era. Hopper had many influences in this life as a realist. Edward Hopper’s family travels helped his realism. The Hopper’s spent nearly every summer from 1930- 1950 in Cape Cod, Massachusetts particularly in the town of Truro, where they built their own house. Hopper used several nearby locations as frequent, repeated subjects in his art. He also began to travel farther for new imagery, to locations ranging from Vermont to Charleston and many more. In the travels Edward's family been through, helped him. The different scenery helped his ideas to create different pieces. Hopper had many things to further his realist ways to his success.
Nighthawks is an example of Edward's era. The painting portrays the downtown diner that Edward Hopper always sees. Edward Hopper said that Nighthawks was inspired by a restaurant on New York’s Greenwich Avenue where two streets meet. The Entry, Essential Guide explains "the image with its carefully constructed composition and lack of narrative has a timeless, universal quality that transcends its particular locale. One of the best-known images of twentieth-century art, the painting depicts an all-night diner in which three customers, all lost in their own thoughts, have congregated. Hopper’s understanding of the expressive possibilities of light playing on simplified shapes gives the painting its beauty. Fluorescent lights had just come into use in the early 1940s, and the all-night diner emits an eerie glow, like a beacon on the dark street corner". The places inspired Edward's painting. The everyday things he sees each day affected him. The influence of an everyday dinner inspires nighthawks. The landmarks and famous places help Hopper's painting. Hopper eliminated any reference to an entrance, and the viewer. Drawn to the light, shot out from the scene by a seamless wedge of glass. The customers and the waiter are night owls seem a separate and removed from the viewer as they are from one another. The red haired woman was actually modeled by Hopper's wife. Hopper denied that he purposefully include this or any of his paintings with the symbol of human isolation and urban emptiness. He acknowledges that in Nighthawks unconsciously, he was painting the loneliness of a large city. Hopper used different styles of painting for the lighting. Hopper also have gotten help from his as she was use for the woman in the painting. With the unconsciously painting of a large lonely city.
Edward Hopper used multiple locations to influence the creation of Nighthawks. Hopper piece together multiple locations to create Nighthawks. Hopper once told an interviewer that the distinctive shape of the Nighthawks diner had had been suggested by a restaurant on Greenwich Ave where two streets meet. Two buildings with at 11th and 12th street fit the description. The building at 12th Street was a squared off structure with conventional widow unlike the Nighthawks diner. Hopper likely walk by this building often traveling between his home on Washington Square and the public library at Greenwich Ave and Horatio Street. The multiple locations help create a Nighthawks. Everyday places mixed in with a diner he walked past. Hints and clues help figure out the different locations. The sleek curve of the night diner does not show up anywhere else nearly. A clue appears not too far away up from 23rd street. The proportion of the panel below the widows is extremely similar and in Hopper's era the prow of the Flation also housed a cigar store with a sign composition Hopper's wife once wrote that she and people posed for the bodies. The two street that meet at 11th and 12th street resembles the corner diner. Flation also housed a cigar store sign overhead. With help from others Nighthawks was created.
Realism is interest in or concern for the actual or as distinguished from the abstract. Nighthawks is an example of Edward's era. Edward Hopper used multiple locations to influence the creation of Nighthawks. Edward used his era locations to influence his painting.