How
Norman Rockwell and Edward Hopper painted America's entry into World
War II
By Lars Trodson
Same
theme. Same war. Entirely different approach.
Who
could be more different in temperament and technique (at least on
canvas) than Edward Hopper and Norman Rockwell? They were born at the
same time (1882 and 1894, respectively), in nearly the same place (New York), and enjoyed spectacular success
during their lifetimes.
But
you'd never know they painted the same America, and no where is this
more evident than two works that treat the same theme in two
spectacularly different ways — and both of which were introduced
about a month apart.
It’s
been written that Edward Hopper started his most famous work,
“Nighthawks,” sometime after the attack on Pearl Harbor. His
wife, Jo, wrote in her diary that he finished the painting in late
January, 1942, and that he had been working on it for about a month
and a half.
I
have written here, and I believe it is more than speculation, that
Hopper designed the diner from an image he saw in a forgotten B-movie
called “Stranger on the third floor.” There is a moment in that
film when a character stands on a corner in front of a diner, and far
too many details align between that screen image and the painting to
be ignored.
But
even if Hopper borrowed imagery from the film, he brought his own
psyche to it: the barren landscape, people sitting in close proximity
to one another without really communicating or connecting. That’s
the Hopper way. While many people have felt the painting is a
discussion on the loneliness and isolation people can feel in the
city, even when there are other people about, I thought that this
painting represented a group of people who were attempting to find
some shelter, solace and comfort in a world suddenly gone strange and
mad. America, and the world, was engulfed in savagery.
The
outside world in “Nighthawks” is a hostile, sinister place, but
at least it’s warm and comforting in that diner.
Now
take a look at this cover of The Saturday Evening Post from December
20, 1941.
By 1941
Rockwell had already morphed from popular magazine illustrator to
national institution, and while never taken seriously as a painter
per se, his technique was widely admired and imitated. Even
so, the idea that Hopper could have seen this particular cover is
somewhere between fairly certain and almost certainly. (There's also
that little detail of the number 5 that appears in both images. I
have looked for a Phillies cigar ad from the 1930s and 1940s that
uses the specific font that Hopper used in the painting, but I can't find one. But you can find the
same stylized number 5 in both the Hopper painting and in the price
of the magazine off to the right in the Rockwell image. Coincidence?)
Neither
work offers a particularly novel idea. These are people seeking
shelter from the storm (in Rockwell's case, quite literally), but of
course it's the treatment that matters.
So
here are two towering figures in American art, offering their view of
how we ought to find comfort in world where solace and comfort suddenly seemed to be in short supply. Art is a wonderful thing.
Here's the link to the essay about finding Hopper's diner: