Annie Proulx on Edward Hopper

Isn’t it nice when one of your favourite writers pens an essay on one of your favourite artists? Especially when you agree with much of what is written. Annie Proulx on Edward Hopper [via Eliane].

Almost every critic, artist, writer (especially writers), art savant, book-jacket designer or media hack sees in Hopper’s mature paintings solitude, alienation, loneliness, psychological tension. The general critical observation that Hopper’s paintings depicted loneliness and that this loneliness was an integral part of the American character is a bit puzzling. Hopper himself didn’t see it and once commented “The loneliness thing is overdone.” More likely than “loneliness” is the sense of self as different and apart, nor are such feelings limited to Americans. The interpretation of “loneliness” possibly stems from Hopper’s habit of focusing on one or a very few somber figures in an everyday setting–café, bedroom, hotel lobby, movie theatre–and the viewer translates a solitary figure as a lonely human.

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