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Monthly media and arts column'The sad desolation' - Edward Hopper at Tate ModernEDWARD HOPPER Edward Hopper was born in 1882 in Nyack, a small town 40 miles north of New York City. His paintings are of isolated buildings in drab landscapes, empty roads with faceless terraced houses, and individuals with blank expressions looking out of their uninteresting rooms. They are characterised by an ominous sense that something is about to happen, or that something needs to happen, for the narrative of the image to be complete. They feel like a tune, unresolved without its final chord. This effect is achieved partly through the structures of the paintings, which are often dominated by the walls, window frames and doorways of rooms, guiding the viewer's eye into places where they feel they ought not to be. This emotion is intensified by the use of strong, contrasting darks and lights, which are often constructed through a careful balance of cool colours accented by areas of surprisingly strong warmth. Then there is the light, which acts as the director of each work, telling the viewer where to look and what to see, explaining the mood by indicating the time of day. LonelinessThe overwhelming sense of loneliness that flows out of Hopper's work has a variety of effects on the visitor to the exhibition. There is a single woman doing her washing at night, sitting at a table drinking coffee, still in her hat and coat, in 'Automat' (1927). A man sits on the edge of a bed with his back to a half-dressed woman lying down and facing away from him in 'Excursion into Philosophy' (1959). A woman sits on her own in the front row of a theatre with her legs neatly crossed at the ankle, looking blankly ahead of her, in 'Intermission' (1963). Many situations in daily living, moments that are never captured by the camera because they are too ordinary, are not given special treatment to display the intrinsic beauty of the scene. They are the absent look that we sometimes catch ourselves in, unaware of whether we have been staring at nothing for a few seconds or for minutes. They are the times when we think of what could have been, wondering whether there is something more to life. Yet there is also a dimension of fearful waiting here, the sense of vulnerability in the calm before the storm, or in the shafts of brilliant light in between the ominous storm clouds. Influence on US filmsThis treatment of the everyday, of the ordinary, by Hopper in his paintings, has had a vast influence on American culture, not least film. Hopper himself compared his paintings to single stills or frames of films. They share the same feeling that a fleeting moment has been captured, as well as the same voyeuristic sense that we are able to look and gaze at people who are entirely unaware of our presence. In Alfred Hitchcock's storyline of watching and being watched in Rear Window (1954), the frightening low-angle shots of the gabled edifice of the Bates hotel in Psycho (1960), and the alienation in scenes from Far from Heaven (2002), Hopper's ideas are used to create feelings of isolated grief and fear. At a time when commentators, such as Michael Moore in his films Bowling for Columbine (2001) and Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), are condemning the American government and media for intentionally encouraging fear in its citizens, Hopper's work is emphatically contemporary. It provides the respectable, intelligent citizen with more reasons to festoon their doors and perimeters with locks and security systems and to overprotect their families as they stray outside the home. Characters watch for the threat for us in Hopper's work, acting as our sentinels. 'It' may come from the forest or from the hills, yet can we cope with it when it does? Easily readThe spiritual dimension to Hopper's work is easily read. Christian readers of these images recognise that there is indeed a judgement on its way. If they are recognising that something is absent, that life is not presenting their 'tawdry' lives with the meaning that they crave, then the works tell modern audiences that, without a created beginning and a heavenly end, their lives are also empty of a caring, loving God. The secular viewer of this exhibition in 2004 could possibly identify the Depression, social restraints, or even the fear of Communism as the root cause of this fear and alienation for Hopper's original audiences. Yet, the universal truth of mankind is that living without reference to our creator and judge provides a right reason to be fearful; not of poverty or terrorism, but of God. The empty questioning is a right desire to discover the truth of reconciliation through Christ. The distinctive, supernatural light that picks out the features of Hopper's blank faces summons them to hope for more than can be contained by their four walls, something that will provide what is needed to resolve the narrative of their lives. Eleanor Margesson© Evangelicals Now - September 2004 |