I am reading Olivia Laing's book 'The Lonely City'. The city in question being of course New York. She writes of Edward Hooper, an artist, a realist artist who died in 1968.
There is an undertone in his work of loneliness, the solitary person, for instance in his 'Morning Light' we have a print of that in the spare room. It always catches the eye with its empty interior except for the window and bed on which she site contemplating the view, which is sunny outside. Stark realism Hooper was very tall, but his wife who demanded that she should always be his model was short, and i wonder if he used her as his model.
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| Morning Light - Edward Hopper |
The second painting is 'Nighthawks', apparently Hooper would walk the streets looking for inspiration and yes there is a loneliness about the spectator staring into an empty bar. It is his most famous painting but not to my taste. Which rather sadly does not like humans in her paintings.
Am I going to touch the subject of loneliness, no not really. Everything in life is given meaning till one tires of it. All I see in his paintings is a yearning to touch what he paints, the subject strong in his mind. He captures what he wants to show, but to argue that from what we see to what he is thinking about really doesn't matter.
Virginia Woolf captures the spirit of loneliness. One felt from her writings a very sad person who lived internally, her mind forever recording what she saw in the external world.
"If solitude fertilizes the imagination, loneliness vacuums it of vitality and sands the baseboards of the spirit with the scratchy restlessness of longing — for connection, for communion, for escape. And yet it is out of this restlessness that so many great works of art are born."
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| Nighthawks by Edward Hopper |
Still I am only at the start of the book and we do know that Olivia Laing went on to find someone she loved in her next book. Which was nearer to my heart about a garden. The Garden Against Time. by Olivia Laing
I believe the painting "Nighthawks" depicts an all-night diner, not a bar. Note the two large coffee urns on the right. People have been known to stop into an all-night diner to sober up with lots of coffee before heading home IF they have a home to go home to. All the coffee does is make them very wide-awake drunks.
ReplyDeleteYes you are right, I was looking at the rectangular squareness of the picture, and also that very green colour he uses. It is a painting from the past, and to me an alien city with of course something different a 'diner'.
DeleteThelma (who has been alienated from her blog once more....)
I think Hopper's paintings evokes a feeling of calmness.
ReplyDeleteA feeling of having some space and time alone to wander or to think. A lot of everyday life is the endless hustle-bustle, noise and commotion.
I remember when I was 18 or 19, I woke up at 4am after a huge snow storm; and walked the streets of my neighbourhood in London on the calm white blanket of snow in my jacket and boots. I had spent about an hour or 2 wandering in the crepuscular, empty city. To this day, I think of that night as magical. I was really happy. I felt so content wandering alone in the stillness and quite. And when you come across someone walking the other way, or sitting in warmly-lit greasy spoon with a cup of tea, you would feel a sense of connection with them as though we know each other.
For, I look at Hopper and think he communicates something calming and deep.
Yes there is also calmness Liam, sometimes it is how we see words. Loneliness for instance is seen as a sad state of feeling when in all what is happening is being alone and enjoying one's thoughts that is called solitude I suppose. Snow has a magic and you are young and can find romance in such things.
DeleteBecause I am anon at the moment I cannot comment on other blogs, it occasionally happens.
ReplyDeleteIt is telling that her city of loneliness is New York, one of the busiest and noisiest cities on the planet. Normally, when we think of lonely, we might think of a sheep farm, 100 ks from the closest pub.
ReplyDeleteNever having been to New York I would not know about the bustle of it but it must be pretty exciting. I prefer solitude as a term to use. Loneliness is about lack of human companionship and is a social hardship.
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