'Nighthawks'

EDWARD HOPPER

1942
oil on canvas, 84.1- 152.4 cm. - Chicago, Art Institute

---

---

“Unconsciously, probably, I was painting the loneliness of a large city”, said Edward Hopper about this work. “Nighthawks” is not only the most famous and reproduced work by the artist, but it has also become the symbol of the solitude of the contemporary metropolis, and it is now one of the icons of 20th century Art.

This famous painting is open to many subjective interpretations. The vision of these four anonymous figures (mysteriously, Hopper called this painting “a three-character work”) inside a highly illuminated bar in the middle of a dark night in this jungle of asphalt and concrete produces an inevitable sense of solitude. By not showing the entrance to the bar, Hopper has turn it into a glass prison in which nobody can enter, nor leave.

Text: G. Fernández, www.theartwolf.com

PREVIOUS PAINTING | back to INDEX | NEXT PAINTING