Out and Back

I found a very nice slide show essay about Edward Hopper this morning on Slate.  It’s worth checking out.  Hopper has always been one of my favorite artists.  When I was working on my undergraduate degree in Art History, I found myself drowning in all kinds of aesthetic, artistic, and philosophical sensibilities.  There were plenty of artists and artistic movements that I had to study but that didn’t move me in the slightest.  (I’ve mentioned before that I found Jackson Pollock irritating… he’s just one example.)  As a result, the artists whose work I did love provided a welcome respite from the stuff that didn’t rock my world.  Hopper was one such artist.

In 2002, my husband and I went to Chicago for a long weekend, and our itinerary included a visit to the Art Institute of Chicago.  I was eager to see one of the most famous pieces in their collection, Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, but I had completely forgotten that what is arguably the most well-known Hopper painting was also a part of the permanent collection.  When I stumbled into the room where Nighthawks hung, I was struck dumb.  This painting never fails to take my breath away.  All kinds of stories fill my head when I look at it.

Despite my love of Nighthawks, my favorite Hopper painting is probably this one.  One of my first real jobs was working as an usher in a movie theatre, and although working in a theatre was probably a lot different when Hopper made this painting, I’ve always related to it because of my own experience.  I can remember popping into one theatre or another at the multiplex where I worked, ostensibly to tell people to take their feet off the seats, but more so I could just spend a few minutes alone with my thoughts.  I got good at disappearing when there was some particularly odious task to be done, such as scraping gum up off the carpets or schlepping candy down from upstairs in order to restock the snack bar display cases.  I doubt the usherette in Hopper’s painting ever had to clean up chewing gum or replenish the toilet paper in the bathroom, but she definitely looks like she has a lot on her mind.