dual personalities

Boy, the work week has already taken the wind out of my sails. I have been very productive, which is nice, but there have been a number of encounters that have just truly grated on my nerves. Ugh. The weekend and our visit to the art museum feels very far away right now. But I’ll try my best to recall my thoughts…

Overall, I am not the biggest Hopper fan. The exhibit was well-curated — I particularly liked the inclusion of other artists who were contemporaries or influenced by Hopper — and it was interesting to peruse, even if the vibe is not my favorite. I was struck by the narrative behind the hotel paintings: Hopper and his wife were avid road-trippers, and would spend weeks on the road. Apparently, Hopper always drove and his wife always recorded the journey. (She kept a journal and wrote correspondence — I use Instagram, but I do send postcards, too.) In that sense, we could relate!

A postcard from their visit to St. Louis

However, I couldn’t help but wonder: did they enjoy themselves? The subjects Hopper paints are always isolated, introspective (if not downright melancholy) and in various states of undress (vulnerable, I suppose). Where’s the fun of a road trip with your wife, there?

“Hotel Room,” 1931

DN did notice that his watercolors in Mexico were punchier and more colorful. So maybe it was just the U.S. that depressed him.

“Church of San Esteban,” 1946

I was struck by how much I preferred the below painting by John Singer Sargent, which also depicts a hotel room. It’s nearly iridescent!

“A Hotel Room,” 1907

One of my favorite classes in college was an Introduction to Comparative Arts course, and it was in that class that I felt like I learned how to go to an art museum. The professor (who recently died, I was sad to hear) certainly expected us to talk about paintings with some attempt at a critical eye. Someone was always ready to talk about how the “intersecting lines represented constraint but they also traveled outside the frame, representing freedom,” or whatever. But she also always asked us, of any given piece of art: “Would you hang it up in your house?” Now, in that class, the taste of many students was such that perhaps they wanted the intersecting lines of constraint and freedom hanging above their mantle. But being asked the question made me think liking something counted as a critical approach to art. Or at least the start to one.

As you might guess, I’d rather hang up something like Sargent’s painting over many of Hopper’s. But that’s just my taste.