Many of the male figures are so still and silent that they have the awkwardness of manikins. By contrast the women are often active, attractive and lively, reflecting Jo Hopper's more vivacious personality. There are some paintings in which the frozen stultification of the male figures becomes a positive characteristic. Two paintings worthy of particular attention in this regard are Four Lane Road (1956), and Two on the Aisle (1927). In both works the male figure is very still. Four Lane Road is a gas station painting with the divided highway and the gas pumps in the background. A lugubrious man sits in a canvas chair at the front of the painting. He is staring into space and smoking a cigar. It is dusk and the sunset casts long violet-blue shadows diagonally across the composition onto the wall of the garage, which fills the right-hand third of the painting. All should be quiet and calm but suddenly from garage window at top right comes the head and shoulders of a woman. She shouts dramatically at the silent figure of the man. This somber garage attendant seems self-aware in a mysterious and special way. He is introspective, but his thoughts seem to include the sunset (the end of another day) and the road itself, that relentless symbol of search that is so much part of the North American psyche. (extraido de John Clark Edward Hopper: Beyond Style Artscribe No.26, Dec. 1980)
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Many of the male figures are so still and silent that they have the awkwardness of manikins. By contrast the women are often active, attractive and lively, reflecting Jo Hopper's more vivacious personality. There are some paintings in which the frozen stultification of the male figures becomes a positive characteristic. Two paintings worthy of particular attention in this regard are Four Lane Road (1956), and Two on the Aisle (1927). In both works the male figure is very still. Four Lane Road is a gas station painting with the divided highway and the gas pumps in the background. A lugubrious man sits in a canvas chair at the front of the painting. He is staring into space and smoking a cigar. It is dusk and the sunset casts long violet-blue shadows diagonally across the composition onto the wall of the garage, which fills the right-hand third of the painting. All should be quiet and calm but suddenly from garage window at top right comes the head and shoulders of a woman. She shouts dramatically at the silent figure of the man. This somber garage attendant seems self-aware in a mysterious and special way. He is introspective, but his thoughts seem to include the sunset (the end of another day) and the road itself, that relentless symbol of search that is so much part of the North American psyche.
(extraido de
John Clark
Edward Hopper: Beyond Style
Artscribe No.26, Dec. 1980)
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