Let us guess that
whenever we read a sentence & like it, we unconsciously store it away in
our model-chamber; & it goes, with the myriad of its fellows, to the
building, brick by brick, of the eventual edifice which we call our style. – Mark Twain
I
didn’t realize until years later how much of my work and my practice as a
writer may have been influenced by my early love of Edward Hopper. Like many in my dorm, I had a poster of Nighthawks on the wall, and the more I
saw of his work, the more I responded to it.
In doing so, I suspect, I was unconsciously absorbing a number of
lessons.
Hopper
paintings are spare with clean lines. They
have unexpected perspectives and odd angles.
The bottoms of cars are cut off, so that you can only see their tops. A lighthouse may be shown off to the
side. The angle-of-vision may be coming
from above or below; however, it doesn’t call attention to itself (or how clever the
artist is). These aren’t Dutch camera
shots. Rather they attune you to ways of
seeing the world.
Richard Hugo once said that he was given the advice to
never write a poem about subject matter that needed a poem written about
it. (You think the subject itself, your
mother’s illness say, is enough to evoke emotion in the reader.) Hopper doesn’t do obvious dramatic moments or
star portraits or the stereotypical icons and landscapes. Instead, he paints everyday locations and
lives – gas stations, offices, movie theaters. As he once put it, “Maybe I am
slightly inhuman… All I ever wanted to do was paint sunlight on the side of a
house.”
He focuses on simple objects and moments, but they are
charged with energy and emotion. In Office at Night, a boss and secretary
work. A piece of paper has fallen. Should she pick it up? If she does, how? Because of the smallness of the space, if she
bends over one way, her butt is presented to her boss; the other way displays
her cleavage. There is the implicit tension
and eroticism of looking; their two desks face each other. They are with one
another, next to one another, all day.
In
Nighthawks, a couple sit beside one
another. He smokes. She has placed her
hand near him, towards him, but they don’t touch. The frisson of closeness, the
melancholy of not touching. Our
isolation even as we are adjacent. (Hopper once said “the loneliness thing is
overdone” but he didn’t say that it wasn’t there or inaccurate.)
Sometimes it’s the spacing and juxtaposition that
suggests the dynamic. Sometimes it’s the
title itself. A woman sits naked,
except for slippers, looking out an apartment window. Is it night?
Early morning? No, it’s “11
a.m.” In a different work, a woman sits
on the edge of a bed. A car can be seen
through the window. The title “Western
Motel” not only gives information, but is enormouslysuggestive. Traveling.
The West. Transit. What’s she running from? Or to?
At some point, I realized that admiring Hopper wasn’t cool. After all, too many people liked his
work. He was considered a kind of “art”
lite, better than Norman Rockwell of course, but along the same lines in terms
of simplicity. A moody artist for angsty
youth. So, I took down the Nighthawks poster and rarely mentioned
him. Then several years ago, on a trip
to DC, I went to a Hopper exhibition at the National Art Gallery. For the first time, I stood before the
originals, and their power struck me anew. I had been right when I was younger;
these pieces were amazing. I felt ashamed
by my shallow disregard. The more I
looked at these paintings, the more I saw.
And, as I read the catalogue about Hopper’s discipline, his relentless
revision, and his commitment, I realized that I still had much to learn from
him. His work is back up on my wall.
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