Beauty in the City by Robert A. Slayton

Author:Robert A. Slayton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2017-04-10T04:00:00+00:00

6.2 Edward Hopper (1882–1967), Night Windows, 1928, oil on canvas, 29 × 34 inches; 73.7 × 86.4 cm. Gift of John Hay Whitney. Museum of Modern Art. Digital image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, New York.

This contrast appeared even more indelibly in Hopper’s other paintings. Night Windows seems to be right out of John Sloan’s sketchbook, with its figure caught voyeuristically through a window. Yet, despite the late hour, she does not seem at repose, or poised to retire for the day.

Teresa Carbone’s comments about this work were particularly telling: “Unlike many night-window subjects originated by New York’s … Ashcan School painters that featured good-natured immigrants minding their neighborhoods or seeking some cool night air, Hopper’s figure is a solitary (at least temporarily) and unabashed modern girl in a brief, silky slip.” Carbone presents a more apt comparison: “She is a young woman similar to those populating Dorothy Parker’s short stories—who rode buses or subways to work each day, suffered the advances of their bosses, and ate their meals in lunchrooms and diners.” And usually ate them all alone.5

Even more extreme is Sunday (fig. 6.3, pg. 96). On the one hand, Sunday could register as an Ashcan-style illustration of a business street in the city. The mood, however, is entirely different. No one is shopping; no one is even there. If the hallmark of a city is human density, this image defies that principle. Rather than a picture of a community, this image presents a desert. As befits a castaway on a deserted island, the lone figure appears forlorn.

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