An Analysis of Edward Hopper's Style of Painting

Ferdinand Loyen du Puigaudeau was a French Impressionist, so his paintings were created in the Impressionism movement. Impressionism is where the artists would want to capture a moment of any time a day and to focus on weather conditions. The most popular paintings from the Impressionism movement are landscapes. The artists would paint by doing light brushing strokes and use bright colors. The impressionists were the first group to embrace painting outside.

Café Terrace at Night was the first painting that Van Gogh painted where he used a nocturnal background. Using contrasting colors and tones, unlike Nighthawk which used complementary colors, Van Gogh was able to achieve a luminous surface with an interior light. Because of the brightness of the luminous surface Van Gogh manage to brighten up the painting with bright yellow stars that appear to make the sky glow, alongside the lights that pour out of the cafe making it attention-grabbing. Likewise with Nighthawks with its illuminate diner which shows similarities in their lighting. The lines of composition is also different from Nighthawk which its lines were very straight and rectangular, the composition in this piece points to the center of the work drawing the viewer's eye along the pavement as if it were strolling the streets. Van Gogh was able to recreated the setting directly from his observation, again similar to Hopper when he used the Greenwich Village diner as inspiration for his work.

“Edward Hopper said that Nighthawks was inspired by ‘a restaurant on New York’s Greenwich Avenue where two streets meet.’” (About This Artwork, Nighthawks, p.1) Hopper had many inspirations for this painting, however, through events in his life, such as venues he had visited, and the era of art for which he was involved. Hopper was born in 1882, and he studied at the New York School of Art from 1900 to 1906, and he studied and worked in the fine arts. During the first part of his art career, Hopper was an illustrator who traveled around Europe, gaining inspiration from the areas he visited, as well as gain more knowledge to increase his skills in creating artworks. At first, he struggled to sell his artwork and create a name for himself so he could become more popular; even after he returned to the United States he had difficulties.

Edward was born on July 22, 1882 in Nyack, New York. At a young age Hopper had great talent for the art. His parents supported Hopper and did everything in their power to help Hopper stay in this path. Especially his mother whom had an artistic background, she encouraged Hopper at a young age to draw. By the time he was teenager he was showing great potentiation in many areas of art media, using pen and ink, watercolor and oil. Hopper started off his art career as an illustrator and gradually he became involved with painting. He would have much of his great successes with painting than he ever had with illustration. He would go on to say, “Illustrating was a depressing experience, And I didn’t get a very good prices because I didn’t often do what they wanted “ (19) which would be a great indication why he felt he needed to become a full

proper geometric shapes.Edward Hopper’s paintings usually center on the same theme: isolation. This is a

I chose a work of art in page 368. The swing, Figure 12.25, paintings by Jean-Honore Fragonard in 1766. which show the frivolous sexual escapades of the members of the French aristocratic class in the mid-eightteeth century. The painting is done in pre-French Revolution era. When the elite was enjoying the worry free lifestyle; which is full of love, lust, and wealthy social life, exquisite clothing. This is clearly shows in this picture, The swing. Medium in this painting is Oil paint. The positive area of this art work is the aristocratic women who is enjoying the swing. The natural patterns in this painting is the freshness that come from the trees and leaves around the women.

Edward Hopper once said,”great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and this inner life will result in his personal vision of the world”. With this being said, one may argue that Hopper’s paintings are a response to “revealing the fractures beneath the painted skin of modern life (Rener, 7)”. Upon further examination to this fundamental, it is evident that Hopper’s paintings represent his ideals of society’s imperfections that can be so cleverly masked by the simple objects of everyday life. His vision was highly selective as he would express his character through the emptiness of landscapes, buildings, and people he painted. “His work demonstrates that realism is not merely a literal or photographic copying of what

Impressionism is a new kind of painting that captures a fleeting moment in time. Whether it be moving people doing daily activities or water shimmering on the lake. During the 1800s, impressionism was a drastic break in the history of art. It is also described as a revolution because it broke away from the average paintings that consisted of history and mythology. The artists could paint what they saw through their own eyes and could use their own techniques. The history of art went from classical paintings to modern, weird paintings. All of the artists had the idea that it was time for them to paint what they saw through their own eyes.

by Emerson. Just as Emerson sat in solitude while exploring his thoughts about the importance of self-reliance, Hopper did the same thing by depicted scenes of introspection and reflection. Edward Hopper is often refereed as “the major twentieth-century American ‘realist’ and one of the giants of the American painting.” During the outset of his career, his style lacked the American aesthetic. Whirl he was studying at the New York School of Art and Design, he built a relationship with his professor and fellow realist artist Robert Henri. When Hopper enrolled into the school, Henri had already become the leading teacher there. However, Henri being an American nationalist painter, he educated in France, where he encouraged his students to travel

Edward Hopper’s first paintings were architectures and typically American urban landscapes, buildings, streets, almost empty squares, gas stations on isolated roads,

The world is bursting with all kinds of versions of this painting. All of these tributes are made because of how much this painting has resonated with the people who have seen it. The beautiful composition and the many well used elements in this painting have always intrigued and interested me. I think that Hopper created a piece that can truly resonate with so many different people.

Pablo Picasso is widely considered the most famous and influential artist of the 20th century. What is so unique about Picasso is his scope: he is not associated with a single artistic movement (along the lines of Jackson Pollack's association with Abstract Expressionism or Salvador Dali's association with Surrealism); rather, his career spanned a wide range of styles and aesthetic philosophies. Picasso's style was very realistic at the beginning of his career. As a young art student, he was known for his lifelike drawings. Only later did he become conjoined with a myriad of modernist movements. "His creative styles transcend realism and abstraction, Cubism, Neoclassicism, Surrealism, and Expressionism" (Voorhies 2004).

The Impressionist period describes a group of painters living in Paris France between approximately 1867 and 1886. Although the Impressionists ' acquired their name in 1874, the Impressionists ' techniques developed during the late 1860s. This group of painters was differentiated by breaking away from the strict academic thoughts on painting, liberating themselves from the rules and traditions of the painters of the time. Impressionist focused less on achieving perfectly finished and realistic works of art, and focused more on portraying their immediate impressions of daily scenes. They sought to objectively record reality in terms of moving light and color instead of the traditional stationary light and single focal point used at the time. The Impressionists didn’t feel the need to paint based on a story or historical subjects, they instead took their easels outdoors painting scenes of modern life, and daily middle-class activities, observing nature in a way that was impossible while working in the confines of a traditional studio. They used thick layers of oil paint, often having visible rough brush strokes which gave the appearance of being quickly painted. These original Impressionists artists were rejected by the government sponsored exhibitions, or salons, and began holding their own independent show in 1874. Because of this independence they faced strong resistance from the conventional art community in France. The name Impressionism is draw from the title of a

By the year 1863 the sentry which allows the visual messages transmitted by the eye to penetrate to the brain only after a rigorous censorship, had admitted most aspects of visual truth, but there were two that had not yet officially passed the censor. They were (1) the colour and vibration of light and (2) the density of air. No one had ever painted the true colour of sunshine and shadow, and hardly anyone had thought it worthwhile to suggest that the density of the air is not always constant, that a picture could be painted, for instance, of a landscape seen through a heavy mist or fog.

Hopper was considered a realist type of artist. His imagery of figures within urban settings goes well beyond their role as modern cityscapes, exposing the under layer of the human experience. Though he was considered a realist, his work was during a time between the World Wars. By considering the dramatic use of soft lighting, smallest action and representation of smaller spaces, Hopper led the way towards Abstract Expressionism.