Amon Wahabzadah

Public Lecture of Edward Hopper

The event I attended was the public lecture of Edward Hopper who was an American painter that was famous for his vision of modern American life. The lecture itself was kinda boring for a lack of a better word, no clear order to the information, which seemed to jump from topic to topic. For the most part the lecturer displayed the various works of Hopper and explained them. Hopper most often worked with landscape images that excluded any human presence. He often disagreed with the common ideas of American life, and didn’t want to tell the stories that would relate to the masses. He also avoided painting with a narrative, and felt that the art itself was enough to display his inner vision of the world around him. This is ironic because before he made it big as an artist he worked as an illustrator to make money, which he despised. A common theme in his art was to criticize American culture through a European point of view, often creating landscapes that showed the loneliness of urban life as a farmer. He also cut off skyscrapers whenever painting an urban landscape because he disliked the symbolism of massive buildings. Instead of the common symbolism they displayed as hugely significant and powerful, he believed they displayed the uniformity of American work life, an idea he did not like. The only painting of his I really appreciated was also the only one I have seen before, the painting Nighthawks, which displays a diner in a night scene with 4 people inside. It is actually recognized as Hopper’s most famous work even though Hopper never gave insight into the meaning of the picture. Even though it was against his nature to paint with a narrative, many scholars and artists attempted to tell the story of the painting through follow up stories, paintings, and film adaptations. Overall the lecture was basically just putting together all his work and explaining his outlook of American culture the whole time. Maybe I didn’t enjoy it as much because I am not an art fanatic and I just see colors and shapes on canvas, but I do admit Hopper was an interesting man as far as his beliefs. So yea that’s my summary/ description of the lecture.