Meta-Critique

In conclusion, my musings on the more obvious qualities of Edward Hopper's Nighthawks left a little room for expansion; namely the ironic possibilities of the lonely life portrayed in the work. I think the Americana feeling that the piece has taken on in todays Onto-Historical world has led to many parodies and references in pop culture, all of which I could not possibly categorize here. I hit a few.

Also in terms of it's influence on the other arts, i.e. music, I could further explore it's referential points in many other works besides the work of Tom Waits. I wish I could not only experience the painting in person, but experience these musical works live as well, to better understand the virtual feeling and sound-in-time. I could also take an entire analysis to explore and deschiper the various levels of referential meaning in the Tom Waits album, which is something I am considering doing on my own free time to further my analysis of Hopper.

My historical and onto-historical sections, luckily, were only helped by the original explorations of Hopper in class; however, I was also limited by the statements and influences of many other peoples opinions of Ed. Perhaps I would have been better suited picking an artist, or a painting I was not already familiar with to some capacity, to avoid too many pre-existing prejudices or judgments. I tried to bracket them out as necessary, but I may have failed here and there.

Finally, I wish I could be more expansive in my analysis. At the risk of being too long winded in any given section, I made sure to not 'ramble' or go too far; this could be considered a weakness in my overall work. I wanted to be concise and insightful, but in setting out to be concise, might have missed an opportunity to push my exploration. If any point or detail needs elaboration or further discussion, I invite all of you to respond to the post and request such an act. I will be happy to do so.

It has been an incredible experience immersing myself in the work and seeing how it has inspired me to other forms of art, as well as how it has inspired music and culture.

Second Open Viewing

The inherent irony of the painting is that it is the picture of loneliness, while portraying four people trapped together, clearly not alone. The diner is bright and almost an unnatural glow, especially for the late night. Most of Hopper's work would capture this sort of ghostly, melancholy dialogue between the man made world and man's more intangible possessions; emotion and qualities of life. Hoppers onto-historical world introduced the fluorescent lighting that would dominate urban establishments like this one, as well as many other leaps in technology which on a larger scale (bombs and such) wrecked havoc on the world. While Fluorescent light is far from the destructive capabilities of the weapons of horror that Hopper's world gave birth to, in a way, it is part of the urbanization that left so many people in one concentrated place feeling so alone, so dehumanized.



Also, upon closer viewing, the windows on the building in the back corner appear similar to the ones in Early Sunday Morning, showing not only a theme running through Hopper's work of this era, but perhaps a comment on the night versus the morning, the nighthawks versus the empty streets.


Note the brownish, two story building with the green awning and windows. It's a slice out of Early Sunday Morning.







We could easily be glancing out the back windows of the diner, seeing the view of Early Sunday Morning.

Speaking of windows, it is interesting how Hopper treats them like they dilute or distort reality. We can't really see through the two layers of windows to the building behind the couple. Nor can we use the windows to see any reflection of the single man, whose face remains a mystery to the viewer. The shadow on his back is proportionate to the shadow to light ratio of the whole painting, or so I think. Also, one last observation about Hopper's insights into the lonely urban world: the streets are always clean. This seems especially odd, due to the rampant smoking and littering of the early 20th century, not to mention an inefficient department of waste management. What kind of alternative dream-verse of Greenwich Village was Hopper seeing? It certainly was just as lonely as the real thing.

I'm not really sure how to proceed with a performance guide, since it is more for a musical work than a painting, although I would recommend for recreations of Hopper's work to paint in an extremely isolated setting, and to not talk to anyone until the work is done. With that, I will end here and resume with the Meta-Critique.