studying nighthawks

Nighthawks by Edward Hopper made in 1942

he painted it with oil paint on a 30 x 60 canvas

Edward Hopper is from the US and he painted mainly in new york.

2. the painting looks like it is a dinner in about the era that it was painted in. i see four people and three of them are costumers sitting at the counter and one is the person who works there behind the counter. it looks pretty late at night and all the people there look kind of tired to me.

3. Edward Hopper is a painter for new york. he studied under Robert Henri, who was a a member of the Ashcan School of painters. they mainly focused on the gritty realities of city living and life. this painting was inspired by "a restaurant on New York’s Greenwich Avenue where two streets meet." that dinner is now gone but this painting is a timeless reminder especially because of the lack of narrative in the painting itself, it could really be in any location. the painting shows three people lost in their own thoughts. although hopper says that he didnt purposefully add symbols of isolation and emptiness to his painting. though he did say that he many have, "unconsciously, probably, I was painting the loneliness of a large city" in nighthawks.

4. hopper uses contrast to draw your eye to the scene with the people by making the outside very dark and without much color and the inside very bight with lot of light. also the green line at the bottom of the windowsill kind of acts like a leading line, the artist shows you where he wants you to look from and with that line he would want you to look from the man working there to the left at the rest of the painting. the painting is also pretty balanced, its more or less asymmetrical but it is balanced because there are two people right next to each other and then there is one person on either side of those two people. there is also a little repetition going on, near the right side of the painting there two silver things (coffee?) and they are pretty big and seem to be exactly alike.