Sunday, art day...
I was thinking of writing something about this painting but changed my mind. What is there to say which is not obvious?
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While I was reading about Hopper and his early formative years, I came across this advice given to him by one of his teachers artist Robert Henri: "Forget about art and paint what interests you in life"....This must be the most valuable advice I've ever heard in my whole life. I just wish I had come across this one well before.
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ReplyDelete<h1>Man and muse</h1>
<p>Edward Hopper's artist wife, Jo, was his only model and was crucial to his success.
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"Barbara Novak tells a story about a party she and O'Doherty threw in the Sixties, towards the end of the Hoppers' lives. Edward and Jo were the first to arrive. They sat down next to each other on a settee, and as the other guests - many of whom were the most successful artists of that new generation - piled in, they thought the Hoppers seemed happy and left them alone. Halfway through the party Novak turned to look at them and saw that a large empty space had been left around the Hoppers' sofa. It was an image straight out of one of his paintings: even in a crowded room, they radiated isolation - together.
'We don't know what she died of,' Novak says when I ask about Jo. 'I think she died for lack of him. And,' she adds, 'he would have died for lack of her. It really was a folie à deux.'"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2004/apr/25/art1
Iterestingly they were complete opposites, physically and psychologically so maybe they completed each other and made them dependent one on another, I don't know.
ReplyDeleteIterestingly they were complete opposites, physically and psychologically so maybe they completed each other and this made them dependent one on another, I don't know.
ReplyDeleteI've always admired Hopper because so much of his work finds beauty in ordinary situations of everyday modern life. But I must say that I rarely have had an esthetic experience in an all night diner. Rather than mysterious women sitting in soft lighti, my fellow diners tend to be drunk frat brothers in harsh flourescent light. Maybe it's just the era i'm living now. Could an artist like Hopper find beauty in a Walmart or a McDonald's? I doubt it. For all the obsession with sex these days, we live in a pretty un-sensual world.
ReplyDeletetgia:
ReplyDeleteBy the way, yesterday i was going through some old papers when i came across a postcard from an Edward Hopper retrospective i went to when i was a young man in the 80s. The postcard brought back memories of my misspent youth and i spent a few minutes enjoying them. Then i came on here and saw a painting from that exhibit. I'm not saying anything spooky is going on here, but the coicidences between you and me have been piling up...And it's not just you...I have noticed Molly and I share numerous things in common. Whenever she posts something about her background, I seem to have a similar thing in my background.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzlG28B-R8Y
ReplyDeletehahaha!!
Could an artist like Hopper find beauty in a Walmart or a McDonald's?
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Maybe not Hopper but another child of our own era who's retina has internalised the "aesthetics" of the odd if not ugly, structures of the soulless places you're talking about and would come with a new way or approach to express how he/she feels about them, transcend the subject and make something beautiful, if not pleasing(not the same thing) about it. I often show to students that piece by Rembrandt depicting the carcass of a slaughtered ox, hardly something you'd hang on your wall but undeniably, a masterpiece for all ages. Chaim Soutine did the same.
One can find interesting things to say about the most uncommon, unappealing objects like this noose!
Yes joe I've noticed already those odd coincidences and one might find there a matter for reflection. I once rang a friend in France whom I didn't talk to for years and he said" how strange, I was about to give you a call!"....
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