Edward Hopper, an American realist painter was one of the most intriguing artists of the 20th century. The term “intriguing” is not used loosely, as looking at his paintings leaves a certain impact on the viewer. We are fascinated by its melancholic nature and its agonising beauty.
Most of Hopper’s work shows a couple in close proximity. You know they are together, they know each other. But there is something that just doesn’t sit right. Perhaps they know too much of each other. Perhaps there is a conflict of feelings — we do not know. All we know is that there is a clear distance. A distance too loud to ignore, too obvious to deny yet too embarrassing to confess.
His painting Room in New York (1932) presents itself as the perfect example of this jarring truth that life’s monotony plays an ugly part in leading love to an unbearable boredom to the point where recognising the other becomes a painful task. Often times we end up wondering if the other was always the same person present in the room with us in the moment.
The painting is a mix of both light colours that we see on the inside of the room and dark shades on the outside that do a perfect job in alienating us as viewers. When we look at the painting our eyes first see the man, engrossed in reading the news — perhaps to avoid conversation with the woman. On the right the woman sits by the piano in her beautiful red-orange dress.
Her hand placement can clearly tell she is not actually playing the piano but just putting her finger on the keyboard out of boredom. Hopper leaves their faces blank, yet we can make out their expression which I find is the most genius part of the painting.
The painting captures our attention by making us feel like a passerby who happens to have mistakenly looked through an open window of a stranger’s house. Where the couple is sitting silently, doing their own work, making us feel like intruders. We were not supposed to look through the window, as now the suppressed secret of an unhappy couple is shown to the world — through our eyes.
The reason why Hopper makes such painful paintings showcasing the monotonous life inside a room through which a character looks outside, only to learn that there is the same deafening monotony out there is because he derives inspiration from his own life. The inspiration being his unhappy marriage with his wife Josephine Hopper, who posed as a muse in several of his paintings, which he painted as a confession to the world perhaps.
The reason why this artwork attracted attention is because it reminds us of our own lives when sometimes, being in the same room with a familiar being becomes a heavy task. Hopper does not just share his unhappiness with the world but also includes every viewer. Doing the work on behalf of those of us who often leave it unsaid when heavy and unexpressed when troubling.
Loved this!!!
Impressive!!!!!
🥰 thank you!