Roger Kimball

Splendid isolation | 22 September 2007

Exhibition 2: Edward Hopper, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, until 21 January 2008

issue 22 September 2007

It is not surprising that Edward Hopper (1882–1967) is an immensely popular artist. His pleasing deployment of colour and easy-going presentation of the paraphernalia of everyday life give his work an immediate warmth and likeability. His muted palette, careful modulation of hues, and soft-edged precision are a recipe for visual charm. Considered simply as aesthetic objects, Hopper’s pictures make few demands: they are, on the contrary, quietly inveigling, almost seductive in their plain-as-day obviousness. And if we’ve never seen diners or drugstores or city streets exactly like the ones that Hopper paints, we’ve seen ones that remind us of them — or vice versa. Hopper seems to give us the very essence of Diner, the graven reality of Pharmacy or Automat, his stylisation communicating an intense period feel that also seems universal, placeless, torn somehow out of time.

Hopper grew up in Nyack, New York, overlooking the Hudson River, and the views from those windows of reflected sunlight formed an indelible library of impressions that served Hopper ever after.

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