newcritics

Gas (1940) oil, 66.7 x 102.2 cm
The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund.

Widely seen to display a sort of inherent “American character,” the work of Edward Hopper seems damn close (perhaps damningly close) to earning him a title along the lines of America’s Painter. He’s popular enough now to give Norman Rockwell a run for his money.

The retrospective now showing in the MFA, Boston, amounts to a sort of “greatest hits” show. The placards explaining his art and career to museum-goers evoke the quality “American-ness,” and the usual nods are made to the pictures’ stillness, quietude, and laconic character—which apparently reflect that of their painter.

All of this can be easily tossed aside and the pictures allowed to speak for themselves. This is not just as it should be; it may be how it must be. That is, despite the information posted with the pictures and the 250-page exhibition catalog, Hopper seems to be less discussed than any major painter I can think of. An informal review of the art books I have on hand, including such common texts as H.H. Arnason’s History of Modern Art, include almost no serious mention of Hopper. He appears briefly, usually represented by one reproduction of a painting, and is merely name-checked along with other representational American painters — Grant Wood, say. (The exception is Robert Hughes’ American Visions in which Hopper is discussed at some length but, again, with the emphasis on the character of the painter as much as the paintings.)

And the choice of which painting to represent Hopper is instructive. While I expected most books to reproduce for the umpteenth time his most famous painting, Nighthawks (1942), the overwhelming choice was, instead, Gas (1940). (This painting is, unfortunately, not included in Boston though it will appear in both Washington and Chicago.)

Gas is especially important, I think, because it shows the art historical attempt to locate Hopper somewhere in the continuum of American art. This seems entirely retrospective to me, a kind of 20/20 art hindsight. Because Hopper’s most important images were painted at a time when abstraction was becoming the major mode of expression, his work might be seen as out of step. (It would be unfair, though, to state that Hopper’s work is not modern.) The choice of Gas to define Hopper is an after-the-fact link to the return of representational art via Pop Art, the gas station being a favorite subject of Pop and a typical American locale. And so we come full circle to the idea of a completely American art and a possible slide into kitsch: the Hopper vs Rockwell idea.

I find Hopper’s paintings, even those I thought I knew well, far more ambiguous in content than usually assumed. I did not experience these works as testaments to loneliness or alienation. The benefit of seeing his paintings in situ is to appreciate their scale (several canvases are larger than expected) and the painterly work that went into them. Hopper’s concerns—especially in his masterful watercolors—seem to me aesthetic, not psychological. While Hopper’s pictures have qualities that, the catalog informs us on the very first page, John Updike described as “calm, silent, stoic, luminous, classic,” these are not—despite the interpretive push in this direction—the only qualities in the works.

One can simply enjoy the pictures as pictures: architectural studies, ocean views, quiet streets. Hopper’s brazen use of blue—something that doesn’t come through in reproductions—is itself a “quality” just as important as any perceived psychological trait. While not exactly revelatory, there’s plenty of interest in this retrospective, if one leaves aside all the baggage and engages the work directly.

Hopper made some excellent etchings before moving full-time to painting, as this show reminded me. His most famous works, here presented in a room labeled “Icons,” may be less imposing than expected, the famous Nighthawks, in my view, especially so. Others, particularly later canvases, may be more impressive than expected. A favorite was the final work in the show, Sun In an Empty Room, painted in 1963. And Hopper could also produce the occasional clunker: Ground Swell (1939) seems a return to illustration, Hopper’s occupation before his success as a painter and a job we are told he “loathed.”

Hopper was a great American artist. Perhaps that is reason enough to think he exemplified the best of a particular “American-ness.”

Edward Hopper
at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
through August 19

at the Museum of the Art Institute of Chicago
February 16–May 11, 2008