Edward Hopper, the painter of loneliness and eternal waiting

In Edward Hopper’s paintings, time does not pass. It seems stopped, condensed in an eternal wait where female faces wait patiently, wrapped in an enigmatic air. Still and expectant figures in hotel rooms, in bars, stations… Solitude and mystery capture all of his paintings thanks to those scenes, those colors and disturbing atmosphere.

Art and psychology have always gone hand in hand and Hopper’s works are not alien to this relationship either.. We guess in them something more than the most striking example of the modernist style of American portraiture.

Enigmas and hidden stories are hidden in his brushstrokes; the same ones that led Alfred Hitchcock to stage several of his paintings in his films. An example of this was the famous house of Psychosiscopied in detail from Hopper’s painting House by the Railroad.

If we look at some of Edward Hopper’s most famous paintings we will notice, for example, that the tables almost always appear empty. It doesn’t matter if the protagonists are in a cafeteria or restaurant: food never appears.

Art historian Judith A. Barter explains that the painter and his wife, also an artist, always ate from cans and that, without being poor, they chose a lifestyle that was as austere as it was suffocating. The same one that is perceived in the paintings.

Hopper also visualized in his canvases the changing role of women in American society at the beginning of the 20th century.. These female figures already appeared in their offices, having a drink at the end of the day in a cafeteria, going to work by train…

However, in all those paintings loneliness itself is impregnated in the form of a patina. A seductive loneliness, but palpable and unsolvable at the end of the day. Without a doubt a reflection of a society that was trying to advance with great difficulty…

Edward Hopper and the psychology behind his paintings

Hopper was an American artist of the modernist period specializing in what is known as American realism.. His work coincided with the rise of psychoanalysis in Europe.

His biographers, like the historian Gail Levin, explain to us in his work Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography, that He himself knew that his mind was somewhat distorted, but it was that internal imbalance that was the impulse that guided his hand when he painted.

He liked to convey in his works the essence of loneliness contained in interiors. (bars, stations, trains and apartments). An exceptional example of this is Morning Sunwhere the viewer acquires, almost without wanting to, the perspective of a voyeurattending to that woman who sits in a pink nightgown on a bed in her room and attends to the view of the sunrise in front of her window.

Edward Hopper, like Raymond Chandler, perfectly described the essence of those 30s and 40s in the United States.. Urbanization, a society trying to wake up after an economic recession, the class difference and that marked loneliness that always seems to go hand in hand with progress. All these dimensions were often impressed on female faces and figures.

Women who seemed immersed in the antechamber of an eternal wait. Perhaps thinking about frustrated hopes, about dreams that never come, about people who were left behind…

The mystery of women in Edward Hopper’s paintings

There is a detail that every good fan of Hopper’s works will have seen on some occasion. Who are those women who appear in your paintings? The answer is as interesting as it is revealing. Each and every one of those faces was one: that of his own wife, the painter Josephine Nivison.

Jo Nivison had more fame and renown than Edward Hopper himself. She had been a successful woman; an admired painter who had exhibited alongside other references such as Modigliani and Pablo Picasso. However, When she married her professional partner, she focused only on him. Together they established a dependent and toxic relationship, but incredibly productive for Hopper.

They lived on the top floor of Washington Square in New York.. They had no luxuries and they didn’t want them either. The only thing they were interested in was that room with incredible views and exceptional light. As soon as they left those four walls, he painted, she made suggestions, did the accounting and organized contacts with agents and art galleries.

As it appears in Joe Nivison’s own diaries, episodes of abuse occurred. Besides, Hopper constantly despised her as an artist so that she would not continue with her career. She wanted it just for himself and she also wanted it just for herself. Both created a suffocating and strange atmosphere, which was also contained in several canvases and drawings.

The painter of the thresholds

The philosopher Alain de Botton once said that Edward Hopper was the painter of thresholds. He specialized without knowing it in that art where the characters are contained in traffic scenarios: a station, a bar, a gas station, a hotel room, an office… They are urban scenarios where people are diluted in the wait, in that look. introspective that perhaps yearns for something that will never return.

Hopper wanted to leave the introspective essence of an era in his art. He himself was a lover of solitude, of that voluntary retreat built with his wife, where she served as a bridge with the outside world.

Joe Nivinson was the one who crossed the thresholds to talk to the press, she was the one who arranged sales or exhibitions and she was the one who served as his muse throughout his life.

The narrative and ambiguous richness of Hopper’s paintings is already timeless. She always attracts, always restless. The architecture, the skyscrapers, the hotel lounges, those women and their clothes, those men with their backs turned and even the empty tables, configure a very specific state of mind that always lasts and attracts: that of loneliness and eternal waiting.

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