edward hopper

today my father and i finally went to the Hopper show at the MFA. Despite the dense crowd of people there with shoulderbags, the show was wonderful. Inspirational. And sad. I was trying to figure out why his women seemed so disconnected, vague, stiff. When I got home I did some reading from the show catalog, and online about his wife, and his marriage. It seems that she refused to let him use other female models, and always posed for him. Their marriage was rife with discontent and mutual physical abuse. These facts were recorded in Jo's (his wife's) personal journals that still survive. Aha! That fact says alot about his energy in painting her every time he wanted a female in his paintings. I adore his watercolors. The energy, the moment captured so well by a single brush stroke of dark green shadow. Beautiful motion, dripping trees, or swaying grass in landscape, and the "interruption" of buildings in the landscape were striking. his use of light is cinematic. The clear air of the cape, and the thickness of New York city air. What I didn't like was his water, too oddly blue, swirly, weird. A small amount of water was fine, but when there was a sailboat on water, or ocean view with water in the foreground, no. yikes. what a joy to see the show, i left there, after three hours, wanting to see more. I wanted to see how he viewed women in Europe (as opposed to america), I wanted to see some of Jo's work (nothing). I wanted to see more, more, more. I usually never want to buy the show catalog, but I left wanting to buy one (and got one). I couldn't wait to open it, and read more. Go see it if you can, at the MFA. you won't be sorry, just look out of the shoulderbags.