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Edward Hopper
Art Institute of Chicago
www.artic.edu
Through May 10, 2008
“Exquisite” might be the choice word to describe the Edward Hopper retrospective
at the Art Institute of Chicago. Unlike the unfortunate sprawling mess of our
current major show at the Milwaukee Art Museum, “foto,” this Hopper exhibition
is finely tuned, well-edited and presented with clarity. Hopper, the American artist
who specialized in painting stillness, stasis, sunlight and alienation, created some
800 paintings during his long career. This show features a mere 90 paintings,
prints and watercolors, in other words, a carefully selected sampling of his
oeuvre. We journey through time, with each room unfolding a theme and stylistic
developments. It’s only mid-way through the show that his major figurative
paintings are unleashed and by the time we get to Night Hawks and Office at
Night, from the 1940s, we are already in a state of shock and awe having
basked in his studies of solitary beach houses, light houses and early explorations
of human distance. Hopper was the consummate craftsman. He didn’t paint fast
or emotionally. He hammered away at his compositions with sketches for months
before he touched a canvas. When he finally started painting, he knew where he
was headed. His compositions are intricately interwoven geometries – all even
paced, static and locked in. In lesser hands, these paintings might be frozen and
boring. Nothing moves. But Hopper has a secret weapon and it’s called “light.” It
bounces off every surface and pools in the most dazzling, jeweled colors – an
orange triangle here, a ruby red stripe there. It pierces the scenes with diagonal
lines, adding movement and momentum to the calibrated compositions. He takes
us on a visual journey, as shards of sunlight electrify citron greens and achingly
fresh blues. The framework of his formal, frozen moments allows the colors to
speak freely and have a life of their own, separate from the more mute and
awkward human narrative of the paintings. And beyond this formal brilliance,
there’s an interesting emotional toll. Hopper’s work is about stillness and the
million non-moments of life. His paintings are a celebration of privacy, our internal
places, contemplation and memory. That desolate gas station, that one night at the
dinner after bar time, the evening we arrived early in the empty theatre: all of
Hopper’s paintings feel like old mental snapshots and suggest the way we
remember things, in fragments of color, light, sound and place, with the details
flattened, but the contrasts exaggerated. And there’s one more thing worth
mentioning. Hopper was a real painter, a craftsman who studied with Robert
Henri and then devoted his entire life to making pictures and making good ones.
That kind of old-school care and craft that yields such caring work is truly a thing
of the past. When we bump up against it, it feels a bit antiquated, but can offer a
refreshing jolt of artistic inspiration. Yes, it’s worth it. Make paintings. There’s a
nobility to the practice. Perhaps we can’t say exactly why, but you won’t leave this
exhibition with any doubts.
Reviewed by Debra Brehmer.
Art Institute of Chicago
www.artic.edu
Through May 10, 2008
“Exquisite” might be the choice word to describe the Edward Hopper retrospective
at the Art Institute of Chicago. Unlike the unfortunate sprawling mess of our
current major show at the Milwaukee Art Museum, “foto,” this Hopper exhibition
is finely tuned, well-edited and presented with clarity. Hopper, the American artist
who specialized in painting stillness, stasis, sunlight and alienation, created some
800 paintings during his long career. This show features a mere 90 paintings,
prints and watercolors, in other words, a carefully selected sampling of his
oeuvre. We journey through time, with each room unfolding a theme and stylistic
developments. It’s only mid-way through the show that his major figurative
paintings are unleashed and by the time we get to Night Hawks and Office at
Night, from the 1940s, we are already in a state of shock and awe having
basked in his studies of solitary beach houses, light houses and early explorations
of human distance. Hopper was the consummate craftsman. He didn’t paint fast
or emotionally. He hammered away at his compositions with sketches for months
before he touched a canvas. When he finally started painting, he knew where he
was headed. His compositions are intricately interwoven geometries – all even
paced, static and locked in. In lesser hands, these paintings might be frozen and
boring. Nothing moves. But Hopper has a secret weapon and it’s called “light.” It
bounces off every surface and pools in the most dazzling, jeweled colors – an
orange triangle here, a ruby red stripe there. It pierces the scenes with diagonal
lines, adding movement and momentum to the calibrated compositions. He takes
us on a visual journey, as shards of sunlight electrify citron greens and achingly
fresh blues. The framework of his formal, frozen moments allows the colors to
speak freely and have a life of their own, separate from the more mute and
awkward human narrative of the paintings. And beyond this formal brilliance,
there’s an interesting emotional toll. Hopper’s work is about stillness and the
million non-moments of life. His paintings are a celebration of privacy, our internal
places, contemplation and memory. That desolate gas station, that one night at the
dinner after bar time, the evening we arrived early in the empty theatre: all of
Hopper’s paintings feel like old mental snapshots and suggest the way we
remember things, in fragments of color, light, sound and place, with the details
flattened, but the contrasts exaggerated. And there’s one more thing worth
mentioning. Hopper was a real painter, a craftsman who studied with Robert
Henri and then devoted his entire life to making pictures and making good ones.
That kind of old-school care and craft that yields such caring work is truly a thing
of the past. When we bump up against it, it feels a bit antiquated, but can offer a
refreshing jolt of artistic inspiration. Yes, it’s worth it. Make paintings. There’s a
nobility to the practice. Perhaps we can’t say exactly why, but you won’t leave this
exhibition with any doubts.
Reviewed by Debra Brehmer.
| Copyright 2008 Art History Chicks LLC |
| Edward Hopper, Office at Night, 1940 |