It is not true that art must disturb; it can also reconcile. Hopper
reconciles us to the solitude no one can escape. He does more than reconcile
us to it; he savors it. He's the loner's artist. Looking through his windows
into people's solitary lives, we are alone together.
The solitude in these paintings and the appreciation of it . . . the
emptiness of these scenes even and maybe especially when there are figures
present in the frame . . . the colors muted as if they were pre-aged . . . .
Hopper's pictures belonged to the past even as they were being painted. That
includes those with a touch of the surreal or futuristic. They have the feel
of a future that never came to pass, a future of the past. Think of the
exhibits at a World's Fair circa 1939 of the wonders that Science and
Industry would soon bring us.
All those promised wonders were going to change everything, banishing time
and space and doubt and loneliness. That is always the promise made to those
who would escape the paradise they can't see all around them. Hopper, who
could see it, knew better. He transmits that knowledge in these pictures,
and transmutes it into something achingly lovely even while he reconciles us
to it.
On the walls of the gallery are the usual tendentious texts breaking down
Hopper's art into glib socio-economic commentary. Hopper himself explained
what he was up to in the simplest words. "All I wanted to do," he once said,
"was paint sunlight on the side of a house." He tried often enough. And he
succeeded in painting all kinds of shade. From the acclaim he garnered
during his life, which persists and grows, there's no doubt he succeeded as
an artist. Whether he ever painted sunlight on the side of a house to his
satisfaction is another question. But he let us see what he was after, and
that is wondrous enough. Thank you, Mr. Hopper.