“In its most limited sense, modern, art would seem to concern itself only with the technical innovations of the period.” In this assertion, Edward Hopper outlines his philosophy about the creative process. When creating, Hopper works to encapsulate the innovations within America and therefore create an illustration of the widespread feeling perceived by Americans at the time. In his painting, House By the Railroad, Hopper fashions an example of his recurrent philosophy through an illustration of the isolation of the aging created by the ascension of the American industrial revolution. Through poetic interpretation, American poet Edward Hirsch pursues the meaning and significance of this painting. His poem, Edward Hopper and the House By the Railroad, emphasizes the the dynamic difference …show more content…
This piece, imagined and executed by Edward Hopper, evokes an isolationist posture in a time of widespread change. Hopper’s art aimed to capture the reality of trends throughout various periods in American history. The painting depicts a sizeable, solitary, and vacant home whose path is intersected by a railroad track. This intersection simulates the intersection between the past and future-an intersection between an outdated style and the developing technology of the twentieth century. The railroad’s close proximity to the foundation of the the house mimics the role of technological and industrial progress as the foundation of a new America. Hopper’s use of light and shadows creates an obvious contrast that highlights the division between modern and old-fashioned ways of life. The lightly colored sky echoes the vacancy of the home, and enhances the abandonment of an outdated era. Through his painting, Edward Hopper communicates the seclusion of an old fashioned country awakened through the transformation of America into an industrial
The author illustrates the “dim, rundown apartment complex,” she walks in, hand and hand with her girlfriend. Using the terms “dim,” and “rundown” portrays the apartment complex as an unsafe, unclean environment; such an environment augments the violence the author anticipates. Continuing to develop a perilous backdrop for the narrative, the author describes the night sky “as the perfect glow that surrounded [them] moments before faded into dark blues and blacks, silently watching.” Descriptions of the dark, watching sky expand upon the eerie setting of the apartment complex by using personification to give the sky a looming, ominous quality. Such a foreboding sky, as well as the dingy apartment complex portrayed by the author, amplify the narrator’s fear of violence due to her sexuality and drive her terror throughout the climax of the
Grant Wood was a Regionalist artist who continually endeavored to capture the idyllic beauty of America’s farmlands. In 1930 he had been roaming through his hometown in Iowa searching for inspiration when he stumbled upon a house that left him spellbound. From this encounter came America’s iconic American Gothic. Not long after Wood’s masterpiece was complete the once ideal countryside and the people who tended to it were overcome by despair and suffering as the Great Depression came to be. It was a time of economic distress that affected nearly every nation. America’s stock market crashed in 1929 and by 1933 millions of Americans were found without work and consequently without adequate food, shelter, and other necessities. In 1935, things took a turn for the worst as severe winds and dust storms destroyed the southern Great Plains in the event that became known as the Dust Bowl. Farmers, who had been able to fall back on their crops during past depressions, were hit especially hard. With no work or way or other source of income, many farms were foreclosed, leaving countless families hungry and homeless. Ben Shahn, a Lithuanian-born man who had a deep passion for social injustice, captures the well-known hopelessness of the Great Depression through his photograph Rural Rehabilitation Client. Shahn and Wood use their art to depict the desperation of everyday farmers in America due to the terrors and adverse repercussions that the Great Depression incited.
This essay will also compare the work of Thomas Moran, another Hudson River School artist working with the same subject matter, and will attempt to clarify the artist’s similarities and differences in regard to both technique and contributions. The work of Winslow Homer, a contemporary of Church, will be briefly discussed in relation to the impact the Civil War had on subject matter in relationship to nati...
American Progress is positioned on an American landscape with the left half of the painting representing western America, while the right side of the picture represents eastern America. This painting is filled with numerous colors all throughout the image, but the left side of the painting is noticeably darker than the rest. In fact, as you move towards the right of the painting, the colors get lighter and brighter. The meanings of the light and darkness within the painting symbolize the known and unknown of the land in America. The west is viewed as dark and mysterious, while the east is welcoming and prosperous.
Thomas Hart Benton was born in the familiar, small town of Neosho, Missouri. He was named after his granduncle, the famed and prominent pre-American Civil War senator. First Thomas Hart Benton studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and then lived in beautiful Paris for three years. When he came back he moved to New York City after 1912 he turned away from his usual style, modernism, and gradually developed a rugged naturalism that affirmed traditional rural values. By the 1930’s Benton was riding a tide of popular acclaim along with his fellow regionalist Grant Wood, who was responsible for American Gothic, and John Steuart Curry, who was responsible for The Tragic Prelude. The mural, America Today (1930-1931, The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the U.S., New York City), Thomas Hart Benton’s masterpiece, presented an optimistic portrayal of a vital country filled with earthy, muscular figures.
John Gast’s painting titled American Progress perfectly portrays the idea of manifest destiny that was engulfing the minds of Americans. In the right side of the painting you see western influence with the boats, a bridge in the distance, and trains with little or no track in front of them allowing the mind to think they are pushing west. In the middle of the landscape are horses, buggies, covered wagons, showing a slight increase in modernity compared to what is to the far left of the painting, the Indians, savages. Gast also places that of western influence in the light and the old primitive way on the dark. This is not coincidence, the idea that primitive behavior is improper and in the dark of what it could be is precisely what Gast wanted to present. You also see in bottom left corner an animal showing its teeth, another signal of the danger that the move west is. What is probably noticed first is the woman in the center of the painting. The angel is the guiding light of manifest destiny, the one who is bringing the light that you see so prominently in the right side of the pa...
Grant Wood’s American Gothic is one of the most famous paintings in the history of American art. The painting brought Wood almost instant fame after being exhibited for the first time at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1930. It is probably the most reproduced and parodied works of art, and has become a staple within American pop-culture. The portrait of what appears to be a couple, standing solemnly in front of their mid-western home seems to be a simplistic representation of rural America. As simple as it sounds, when looking deeper into this image, it reveals something much more complex.
“America means opportunity, freedom, power.” These powerfully true words, spoken by philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, illustrate the symbolic meaning America had come to inhabit in the eyes of desperate immigrants. During the Industrial Revolution, a booming American economy as well as external foreign events helped direct immigrants to America, a fabled land of liberty and power. This large influx of immigrants was instrumental in shaping the very country we know today. A large part of immigration was directed through the famous Ellis Island, known as the Gate to America, or the Golden Door. The co-dependency of the Industrial Revolution and immigration through Ellis Island can be illustrated in a number of examples.
In The Foundry (Appendix A), Adolph von Menzel uses dark color to create shadows, representing the darker aspects of the Industrial Revolution, while, JMW Turner celebrates the Industrial Revolution in his painting: Rain, Steam, and Speed- The Great Western
Edward Hopper was a realist and his subjects were drawn from real life situations. This art is naturalistic because it has recognizable objects that imitate nature and three-dimensional space, like the diner, customers in the diner, and other buildings in the background. The
Imagine you can own one of the famous painting in the world. Which one would it be? What will you do with it? If I got to own a famous painting, I would hang it in my bedroom and I’ll show it to my family. In this situation, If needed to narrow it down it will be The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali or Nighthawks by Edward Hopper. These paintings are extremely different, and their artistic movement is opposite from one another. By the end of this essay, you’re going to know the differences and similarities of these paintings.
...t is important to note the historical factors of the 1960s, which are more relevant chronologically in 1970 when Asher created this work, than 1973, when Buren exhibited his work at the John Weber Gallery. Foucault says that his term, genealogy, is the synthesis of scholarly knowledge and local memories that create a historical knowledge of struggles. For Institutional Critique artists of the 1970s, this historical struggle would have been the protests of the 1960s, perhaps even the Paris student/artist protest in 1968. From this knowledge of past struggles, people can use this information in the future, much like Haacke, Buren, and Asher who use the idea of protest in their work. Protesting something unjust is precisely what Institutional Critique does, and Asher’s architectural intervention exemplifies this flawlessly, just as Buren and Haacke’s works do. (82%)
The painting American Progress (1872), shows the beauty of the country’s expansion, along with the peaceful movement of the country spreading west. The contrast between the east, as a light place and the west as dark, shows the hope that is waiting for them. The angelic figure of Lady Liberty, gliding above them showing them the way, with this she brings communication advancement and education. She is an unstoppable force. Just like America’s destiny to expand.
The most striking figure in the painting is Columbia, who visually connects East and West; she is the picture of a pristine American, with pale and unblemished skin, blonde hair, and a flowing white dress to accentuate her beauty. Columbia is obviously the source of the Eastern light. She brings with her all of the quintessential signs of civilisation: the railroad tracks, the miners and farmers and bankers, the settlers on the Oregon Trail, the pony express, and, in her right hand, arguably the most prominent symbol of industrialisation in the 19th century, and the fundamental invention that would, literally and figuratively, connect East and West: the telegraph
“When she married Edward Hopper, Josephine Nivison was 41, and had been painting successfully for 16 years. Her work had been shown alongside that of Modigliani and Picasso, Maurice Prendergast and Man Ray. She regularly sold drawings to the New York Tribune , the Evening Post and the Chicago Herald Examiner (....). When the Hoppers embarked on their hermitic existence, however, their influences fused to curious effect: as his palette borrowed some of her bright hues he became a runaway success, and when she began to emulate his style she lost all recognition.” (Wood,