Artist
What Is It?
The 1942 oil on canvas painting Nighthawks by the American artist Edward Hopper.
What Is It About?
This is how Wikipedia describes this painting:
Nighthawks is a 1942 oil on canvas painting by Edward Hopper that portrays people in a downtown diner late at night as viewed through the diner’s large glass window.
Also portrayed are the exteriors of the urban structures across the street from the diner.
It has been described as Hopper’s best-known work [1] and is one of the most recognizable paintings in American art.[2][3]
Within months of its completion, it was sold to the Art Institute of Chicago on May 13, 1942, for $3,000.[4]
It has been suggested that Hopper was inspired by a short story of Ernest Hemingway’s, either “The Killers”, which Hopper greatly admired, [5] or from the more philosophical “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”.[6]
In keeping with the title of his painting, Hopper later said, Nighthawks has more to do with the possibility of predators in the night than with loneliness.[7]
My Thoughts
Years ago, back when I was in high school in a Fine Art class, we had a project where we had to pick an artist (and maybe a painting) to do a report on.
I remember looking through the text book when I noticed this painting, it caught my attention, and so I decided to do my report on Edward Hopper; and I probably mentioned and had this painting in my report.
I think that this painting does a good job capturing a moment in time at night that gives you a nice feel of that time period and that time of day; and you even get an idea of the mood of the people in the painting.
The end,
- John Jr
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