‘Nighthawks’: Edward Hopper’s vision of existential America
‘Nighthawks,’ an oil painting by American realist Edward Hopper, contains one of the most empathetic looks at loneliness in 20th-century art.
It shows a midnight scene at a nondescript diner, complete with a couple sitting together, one bartender and one lone patron. It was this man, sitting alone observing the more social scene across from him, who came to symbolise the increasing sense of loneliness looming over America as it stepped into the modern age.
Although the two men share a corporate uniform, complete with a suit and hat, there’s no sense of social cohesion. The lone man’s isolation is reinforced by the two coffee pots opposite him, as well as the series of three windows seen across the street from the dinner – only two of which are lit. These subtle cues reinforce how alien he feels as a lone figure and reinforce social constructs about the importance of partnership.
But the loneliness ripples through the entire piece, fragmenting all four figures until they each look completely distant from each other. The couple don’t touch or even meet each other’s gaze. But the sense you get is that their cold relationship is preferable to being alone, which speaks to America’s tendency to champion security over connection, particularly during the period it was painted.
Completed in 1942 after the Depression years, not only did Hopper allude to the weight of social norms hanging over America but also a pressing anxiety about war. Hopper’s wife, Josephine, would keep a diary of each of his paintings, and Hopper himself would fill in detailed descriptions of his planned works with a rough sketch to guide him.
The entry described the setting as night-time, surrounded by the “brilliant interior of [a] cheap restaurant”. His notes were instructional, too, saying: “Note: bit of bright ceiling inside shop against dark of outside street at edge of stretch of top of window”.
According to the diary, ‘Nighthawks’ was completed on January 21st, 1942, just after the bombing of Pearl Harbour, and the backdrop of the attack on Pearl Harbour alters the painting’s interpretation of sheer loneliness to that of wartime alienation and misery.
Hopper continuously threaded staples of Americana through his paintings, namely in the gas stations, motels, restaurants, and railroads he crafted. More often than not, the people in his paintings are gazing out, observers rather than convincing protagonists. He lived through a revolving door of artistic movements in the United States, but his own style never faltered.
Hopper fastidiously stuck to his saturated colour choices and high contrast lighting, creating a foundational palette for film noir because of the piercing, cinematic mood it created – with Sam Mendes and Alfred Hitchcock citing his sombre works as a critical influence on them.
