For several weeks I had seen the announcements for the exhibition of Hopper drawings at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Time was flying and finally I made it there, three weeks before its closing date (October 6).
I had done some preliminary research. The exposition’s website is very informative. The aim of the exposition was to shed light on Edward Hopper’s artistic process – from initial drawings to final painting. The webside shows five or six examples for major works by Hopper, for example Nighthawks (the scene in the night café) which I found very interesting. So I was glad to see those works in real.
The exhibition was crowded, but I nevertheless enormously enjoyed seeing Hopper’s drawings, watercolours and paintings. Nighthawks, painted 1942, is very impressive to see live. It is as if the painting was illuminated from the inside, such a bright shine from the lights of the café in contrast to the dark night scene.
Hopper’s process: Route 6, Eastham
I have taken pictures of the studies for and the final painting of a house in Eastham. This is at Cape Cod in Massachusetts, where the Hoppers spent many summers. The exposition series starts with a watercolour which again impressed me by the use of light. I’m not sure whether my photo conveys it, but when standing before the original, I could perceive the glazing sunlight of a hot summer day at the seaside.
The compositional studies are sketches of a house and other details, and they are filled with notes about colours. It reminded me a lot of the instructions for this drawing course! The final painting is different from the watercolour in details and in overall impression. Compared to watercolours from other artists I appreciate, like Emil Nolde, Hopper’s style is very different: Very controlled and orderly. But the strive for perfection bears the risk of killing the paintings.
The stairs
The look downstairs through an open door into the garden is another example for what I see in Hopper’s works: The drawings are very forceful and alive, while the final paintings appear “perfect” and extremely quiet, at the edge of feeling dead. I am full of admiration for Hopper’s drawings, and I find his paintings beautiful, yet a bit scary.
Self portrait
The self portrait as a young man in charcoal on paper is more of a painting than a drawing. The later style is very apparent: A simplification of shapes and mastership of creating three-dimensionality through tonal shadings.
Tree studies
I very much liked Hopper’s tree studies. They are very forceful, they leave out unnecessary detail and Hopper manages to bring out the lighter areas over the darker shades in the foliage. I am aware of my own attempts and struggles in my first landscape drawings. I found it nearly impossible to draw a group of trees because I did not know how to get those lighter areas on top of darker areas. So these drawings are Hopper’s solution to a problem I’ve encountered, too. That was a nice experience.
The sailboat
Included just as a reminder, it is a beautiful drawing and a beautiful composition. I don’t remember to have seen the completed painting though, not sure if one exists.
What I took home from the exhibition visit
Earlier that day I had been outside to draw trees and was quite frustrated, because I found the task very difficult and my results very modest. I was in the mood of questioning why I would want to draw trees, or draw at all, and whether I might ever make some progress at all. Then looking at Hopper’s drawings, which included some of the sketches he made as a young man – a bit distorted, but getting better and better – instilled hope. I saw how rude and forceful his mark-making became later on, and I liked that style. Hopper was a master at bringing out the full contrast from very dark to very light in his drawings and also in his paintings. Indeed he seems to me a master of dramatic light.
The exposition instilled some self-confidence. I judge my own mark-making as impatient and not very competent because the results are not accurate representations. I think my drawings are not very good, but maybe the problem is not that they are not accurate enough, but rather that I’m not really into what I’m doing. So maybe I should just accept “my way” of doing things and get into it with more energy. “Work harder”, as I had realized earlier already!
A second visit to the exhibition, two weeks later
The exhibition will soon be closed, so I took the opportunity of a specially arranged evening event at the museum to go there for a second time. This time I did not go through all the rooms from beginning to end, but instead started in the middle and went a little bit to the left and a little bit to the right. I focused on Hopper’s charcoal studies. I really admire how he creates tones from deepest black to paper white. I also liked how he used tonal shades to create three-dimensionality in the figure drawings. I have just begun with the figure drawing part of the course, and so Hopper’s drawing are very inspirational. He also drew his hands, self portraits, and made many sketches of people, some in clothes and some women nude. It may sound a bit strange but I feel inspired to just do the same.
References
Edward Hopper (1882-1967), American painter
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Exposition presentation at http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/HopperDrawing