IB Visual Arts Comparative Study

Comparative Study

Hopper, Edward. Nighthawks. 1942, oil on canvas, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago.

Van Gogh, Vincent. Wheatfield With Crows. 1890, oil on canvas, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

David Esteban Cabrera Zapata Visual Arts SL May 2018

Hopper, Edward. Cape Cod Evening. 1939, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

INTRODUCTION

Edward Hopper and Vincent Van Gogh are two of the art world’s greatest figures. They each have their own signature style that can be seen throughout their work and both seem to depict reality in a unique way, turning apparently ordinary subject matter into selfportraits embedded with emotionalism that comes through in completely opposing ways.

While their medium of choice, oil on canvas, is similar, their artistic style is utterly different, just as the historical context and artistic movement to which each one belongs. Edward Hopper was an American realist whose work is primarily oil on canvas, while Vincent Van Gogh was Dutch Post-Impressionist characterized by bold colors and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork. This comparative study will analyze the formal and conceptual elements of Nighthawks and Cape Cod Evening by Hopper, and Wheat Field With Crows from Van Gogh. Nearly 50 years separate these two artists, both using different techniques and belonging to different movements, yet it’s remarkable how they both were great contributors to their time: Edward Hopper is one of the fathers of modern American art and Vincent Van Gogh’s work contributed to the very foundations of modern art.

VINCENT VAN GOGH

“What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?”

MAR 30, 1853 - JUL 29, 1890

Vincent Van Gogh.

He belonged to the Post-Impressionist movement, despite not viewing themselves as a collective movement at the time. In Van Gogh’s work it is possible to observe the patchwork treatment of color and brushstroke from this artistic movement. Van Gogh was also influenced by a strong interdependence between his brother, Theo, and him. Possibly eventually causing Van Gogh’s alleged suicide. Despite selling only one painting during his lifetime, Van Gogh is now one of the most popular artists of all time.

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My encounters with Van Gogh The first time I saw a painting of Van Gogh was in a visit to the Art Institute of Chicago (2016) in which I saw one of his self portraits, photo above. Then I was fortunate to meet him again in a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2017). Seeing the paintings first hand was an amazing experience, since I could witness the tridimensional quality of his brushstroke, otherwise unseen through a digital rendition. More recently, I also saw a painted film on his life, “Loving Vincent”, which sparked my curiosity on the intricate mysteries surrounding his personal context.

*Photograph taken by me at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Vincent Van Gogh, the iconic tortured artist, is one of the art world’s most prominent figures and famously troubled. Van Gogh is known for his expressive brushstroke, bold colors and nearly surreal treatment of subject matter. “Each painting provides a direct sense of how the artist viewed each scene, interpreted through his eyes, mind, and heart. This radically idiosyncratic, emotionally evocative style has continued to affect artists and movements throughout the twentieth century and up to the present day, guaranteeing Van Gogh's importance far into the future.” (The Art Story Contributors) He suffered from depression and mental instability, eventually voluntarily committing to an asylum in Saint-Rémy in 1889 where he would spend the final years of his life. Most of his best-known works were produced during the last two years of his life, suffering from severe episodes of mental instability such as epilepsy, psychotic episodes, delusion and bipolar disorder.

EDWARD HOPPER JUL 22, 1882 - MAY 15, 1967

“My aim in painting has always been the most exact transcription possible of my most intimate impression of nature.” Edward Hopper.

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How I first met Hopper The picture above is a photo of Nighthawks I took in a visit to the Art Institute of Chicago (2016) before starting the Visual Arts course in the Diploma Program. It was my first encounter with Edward Hopper and 1930s American Art because of a special exhibit the museum was holding. I immediately fell in love with the emotionalism in his paintings and knew I wanted to work with him during my course.

*Photograph taken by me at the Art Institute of Chicago

Edward Hopper is an exceptionally unique artist. He’s an icon of American art that has endured the test of time. Within him converge a series of personal and sociocultural aspects, from a complex marriage to an artistic sparring in a society between wars. He lived during the wars and economic crisis of the first half of the 20th century, most importantly the stock crash of October 29, 1929; which gave birth to the Great Depression. This crisis caused a complete revaluation of American culture and influenced every aspect of it, including art. An artistic sparring occurred amidst the search of what it meant to be American in a society that fought between tradition and progress. Some aimed for realism, while others for abstraction.

Edward Hopper, despite being a realist in style, was right in between the two opposing movement. In other words, Hopper was a realist in denotation but a surrealist in connotation, exploring the human psyche through a clever mixture of realism and abstraction in his work.

He was also affected by a very convoluted marriage, full of bitterness and resentment, yet with an indescribable symbiotic nature in its essence. Edward Hopper married a fellow student, Josephine Nivison, of his professor at the New York School of Art, Robert Henri. While she was the famous one when they met, Hopper’s career ended up overshadowing her, which caused a lot of friction between them and severe episodes of domestic violence. Nonetheless, she always exerted a great deal of control over Hopper’s work, perhaps this is why there is always a felt tension between male and female individuals in his oeuvre.

The “America After The Fall” exhibit Hopper’s work “Gas” was featured in the “America After The Fall” special exhibit from the Art Institute of Chicago, of which I took a photograph seen left.

This artwork triggered my interest in Hopper since I was instantly attracted to the moods evoked by his desolated landscapes. Gas and Nighthawks share similar qualities, however I decided to use Cape Cod Evening because I find a higher connection with Van Gogh’s work in the way they reflect the artist’s inner state.

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** *, **, *** Photographs taken by me at the Art Institute of Chicago

Before Hopper, my favorite artist was Van Gogh, likewise, for how emotion came through the paintings. However, in Van Gogh this is seen explicitly in the brushstroke, while in Hopper it’s codified in other formal elements. Seeing both artist’s work firsthand allowed me to notice this and sparked this comparative study.

Oil on canvas

Nighthawks features a cropped composition at eye-level that thrusts the viewer into the scene, keeping him or her isolated nonetheless from the inside of the diner. The forms recede from the picture plane, as if looking through a window into the artwork. There is a subtle tonal contrast inside and outside the diner, however the difference is strong between the interior and exterior. There is a warm atmosphere inside the diner and this contrasts with the coldness seen outside in the night. The only light source in the artwork is coming from within the diner which pours out onto the sidewalk generating cross-hatching which gives it some texture.

The tridimensionality is generated by shadows cast by the light and tonal contrast, for example in the coat of the man sitting with his back to us.

The painting also features a very strict geometry composed of straight forms and guidelines generated by the diner and the tables inside it. The contours of the building, along with the differences in light, guide the eye through the artwork. Overall, a warm palette of reds and browns is used with some hints of blue, specially in the outside of the diner. The feeling of the colors is opaque but rich in nature. They are very harmonious, there’s a use of gray to create liaisons that help achieve this harmony; this is evident in the transition of values in the outside of the diner.

Furthermore, there is a contrast of high key and low key colors between the interior and the exterior of the building, which further reinforces the sense of solitude and alienation in the painting. There is a low emphasis on texture, as not much is seen; for example the texture of the bricks or the walls of the diner isn’t quite defined. Nonetheless, texture is specially present in the specific details of the artwork, for example in the clothes of the people in the diner, the sidewalk, the coffee urns or the napkin holders on the counter. Lastly, the brushwork is very tight as it is careful and controlled which further demonstrates the attention to the small details, such as the turned cash register at the back of the painting. *

1, 2, 3, 4, * Hopper, Edward. Nighthawks. 1942, oil on canvas, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago.

FORMAL QUALITIES

Nighthawks

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1942

We can observe the warm light generated by incandescent light bulbs within the diner. This light affects the color interpretation of the objects and people inside the diner making them high key and tilting the balance of the composition to the right.

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The light pouring onto the sidewalk creates these differences in values, known as cross-hatching, that provide it with some texture recognizable of the concrete material. It also suggests that there is more than one lightbulb hidden from view inside the diner.

The tonal contrast is decreased outside of the diner and the colors become darker and duller as the palette shifts to browns and grays. This is the last place the eye is led to and can be interpreted as one of the areas of less importance inside the painting.

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The cherry countertop and chairs of the diner is one of the few places of the architecture in which Hopper has emphasized on texture. Embedding it with a s m o o t h , a l m o s t g lo s s y, appearance generated by the slight reflections of light and those resting on it.

There is a combination of brushwork, very tight in the house and loose in the grass and trees.

Furthermore, this once again demonstrates H o p p e r ’s o b s e s s i v e attention to detail.

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There are two c o n t r a s t i n g characters of the lines in the painting: in the human figures, house and dog the character is slow and careful, conveying precision, accuracy and welldefined contours. In the trees and grass the character becomes more hesitant and sketchy, showing doubt and uncertainty.

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The colors collide in the center of the image in a harmonious and synchronous way: the dress of the woman, frames of the door and windows, the pants of the man and pieces of grass and trees encompass the range of hues employed by Hopper to generate complementary contrasts.

Cape Cod Evening

FORMAL QUALITIES

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1939

Oil on canvas

Cape Cod Evening features a harmonious composition in which the center of attention is at one of the significant points of the rule of thirds. There is, nonetheless, a division in the middle of the composition caused by the left contour of the Victorian house and the beginning of the blue forest. This is further emphasized by the dramatic change in hues and tonal values. The figures are arranged in an organized and balanced way, designed to create order. There is a direct unseen diagonal, marked by the gaze of the man to towards the collie, which, along with the woman besides him, is one of the main points of tension in the artwork. Overall, there is a narrow tonal range and the texture of the wood of the house is generated by light raking. Despite being set in the evening, as revealed by the title, it features a very cold atmosphere, partly generated by the palette chosen and the light. We know it’s cloudy since there are very diffused and subtle shadows. This atmosphere results jarring for the viewer and emphasizes a sense of alienation and danger in a similar way to Nighthawks. There are two contrasting uses of form. There are concrete ones, such as the house and its details, which collides with the very organic forms of the grass and trees. An illusion of motion in the grass and leaves indicates it is a windy evening and is not very pleasant. There is a hidden guiding line into the woods that leads the viewer’s eye to a path of trees that ends in a void within the painting seen in the central left side area. We confront the scene directly as equals in a staged drama. Moreover, Hopper isn’t really making an effort to draw us into the painting, since there aren’t very strong perspective lines, in contrast to Nighthawks, which has very defined escape points. The colors used are very harmonious, calm and almost muted; which gives the painting a sad sensation, yet it is not sad to look at. Colors are slightly pale and not s o v i v i d a s i n H o p p e r ’s Nighthawks. They are overall low k e y c o l o r s a n d t h e r e’s a complementary contrast between the wheat colored grass and the blue trees.There is definitely more texture in this artwork than in Nighthawks; the grass, trees and walls have a palpable feeling, just as the smoothness of the Collie. * 1, 2, 3, 4, * Hopper, Edward. Cape Cod Evening. 1939, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Wheatfield With Crows

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1890

Oil on canvas

FORMAL QUALITIES

The composition of the artwork is balanced, with the sky occupying the upper third of the frame and the wheatfield the two bottom thirds. The elements are organized around a horizontal axis and they all converge at the center of the painting, where the road ends and from where the crows are coming from. It has a cropped composition that gives it a cinematic feel similar to Hopper’s work. The shapes are arranged somewhat randomly, perhaps to unsettle the spectator. There is a harmony in the way we read the artwork, being guided from the bottom left corner to the top right border of the composition by a flow generated by the path and the crows. There isn’t a specified light source in the artwork since the artist hasn’t made emphasis in the use of shadows to create tridimensionality.

The atmosphere of the painting is cold and the artist has captured the unsettling mood of the scene through the use of blue-tinted northern light. This isn’t a happy * painting. Van Gogh decomposes the forms, yet they are still recognizable.

The illusion of form has been given through warping the heavy lines into shapes that configure, ultimately, a landscape. The slight illusion of tridimensionality is mostly given by the perspective and viewpoint used by Van Gogh, in which the elements are receding from the picture plane. This use of viewpoint is similar in Hopper’s work. The viewer is thrust upon a staged drama. The artist has a unique approach to the use of line that reflects the post-impressionist period. The lines are thick and bold, almost a subject of their own; a quality seen in Hopper’s use of light. They posses weight and density. His line has an expressive quality and is used to reveal texture. Van Gogh uses a lot of mark-making, he was known to paint with his fingers in some occasions (vangoghmuseum.nl). Color is used in a highly contrasting way, as each of the marked color areas enhances the others. The palette used is mostly composed of yellow, blue, green and brown along with their distinct tonal values. They are analogous since they are closed to each other in the color wheel. The use of color is rich and highly saturated however somewhat low in brightness; this is perhaps to achieve a connotative effect in what Van Gogh was looking to convey.

1, 2, 3, 4, * Van Gogh, Vincent. Wheatfield With Crows. 1890, oil on canvas, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

Similar to Hopper’s Cape Cod Evening, in the center of the artwork all of the colors collide in a balanced and congruous way. It is one of the first places the eye goes to when observing the painting.

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The arrangement and production of the lines are fast and expressive, capturing the dynamic movement of the artist’s hand. Sometimes they seem h e s i t a n t a n d s k e t c h y, showing doubt, change and trouble that may shine a light into the artist’s personal life.

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The black crows intensify the adjacent color values of the blue sky; however, it also gives the sky a darker appearance. This is also achieved by the dark blue clusters painted around the light clouds. This contrast strengthens each color.

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The brushwork of Van Gogh is fast and textured (very loose), awfully unlike Hopper’s. It’s visible and nearly tridimensional, adding high vitality to the artwork.

Nighthawks Conceptual Analysis Edward Hopper

Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks is probably his most famous painting, widely recognized as a signature piece of Americana. The artwork’s connotative vagueness has left it open to several interpretations, each different in the elements they analyze and deem important.

Nonetheless, it is undeniable that it’s a quintessential work of Hopper, in which all of his recurrent themes and motifs are present. Most poignantly, there is a lack of narrative in the painting that fill it with unanswered questions that somehow reinforce the sense of solitude and estrangement one can feel among a crowd in a modern city. Hopper visits the themes of alienation generated by urbanization; Americans made the transition from the country side farms and towns to the concrete jungles that rose during the 1920s and 30s. This generated a sense of identity loss, added to the crisis generated by the great depression and the wartime anxiety. These feelings of angst and worry are explored by Hopper in Nighthawks through the miscommunication of the four characters in the painting, of whom the artist gives very little information. The four customers are lost in introspection and disconnected from each other, this is especially evident between the male and female subjects in the counter. For instance, it is unclear whether they know each other, they’ve just met, or whether their amidst a conversation. Moreover, this disconnection extends to the viewer who is left out by the glass window and the contrast of high key and low key colors between the interior and the exterior of the building. “The empty composition and flat, abstracting planes of color give the canvas a timeless feel, making it an object onto which one can project one’s own reality.” (Zapella) Ultimately, this was what made Hopper’s work so unique. His staged tableaus are depict scenes that are recognizable enough for us, we know where they could be from, yet something about them makes them seem as if they were scenes of a life of which we have nothing but a distant memory, reminding us of a moment in our existence we’ve forgotten. The diner and architecture in Nighthawks is inspired in New York’s Greenwich Village, yet the exact place depicted in the painted does not exist.

The tensions between the characters and, as said before, between the male and female subject, echoes at tensions of his own marriage. In Jo’s, Hopper’s wife, diaries she wrote that she served as the model for the red-haired woman in the picture. Joanne was the model for almost all of Hopper’s women and, as explained in screen 4, she exerted a lot of control in his work. The ill-fated marriage generated mental disruptions in the artist and this is expressed through the artwork’s sense of detachment. The friction between the male and female individuals in the artwork, the depiction of a place in which life is only transitory and the moods evoked by this treatment of subject matter hint at Hopper’s personal condition. The emotions that flourished in his own marriage are reflected in the artist’s work.

“unconsciously, probably, I was painting the loneliness of a large city.”

Edward Hopper Hopper, Edward. Nighthawks. 1942, oil on canvas, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago.

“It is no exact transcription of a place, but pieced together from sketches and mental impressions of things in the vicinity.” Edward Hopper

Hopper, Edward. Cape Cod Evening. 1939, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Edward Hopper’s Cape Cod Evening is considered to be one of his most mature works; painted during his best creative period. The artwork is, as most of his paintings, open to many different interpretations; and several art historians and critiques have approached the painting in their own way. One of the things that characterized Hopper was that he always remained unexplainably quiet about his paintings and was really vague on their subject matter in the seldom interviews he accepted to give. On Cape Cod Evening, however, a lot can be found in Jo’s diaries on its construction and Hopper revealed a lot on how he painted it. The artwork isn’t based on an exact place, but it is rather composed of different objects and scenery that surrounded him in his house in Cap Cod, South Truro. However, concept-wise he never spoke openly about it. In the summer of 1934, the Hoppers built a studio house in Cape Cod, where they would spend six months of almost every successive year and it would become one of Hopper’s strongest, and most significant, subject matter. The depicted white Victorian house in the painting is one of his most repetitive subjects, rendering it throughout several paintings in the Cape Cod series in different times of the day.

Once again, as in Nighthawks, there is an intense “psychological isolation that separates the male and female protagonists (…) [reflecting] Hopper’s penchant for mysterious, quasi-narrative subjects that imply dysfunctional sexual relationships” (Torchia). This interpretation is further explored by art historian Gail Levin, who implied that the scene alludes to Hopper’s deteriorating relationship with Jo. Cape Cod Evening’s mood, a sinister ambience achieved through the formal qualities of color and light, transmit the feelings of anxiety and distress that were plaguing the artist’s personal life. The evident discomfort shown by the woman’s face depicts a stance that shows the fury Jo directed towards Hopper (Levin 57).

On the other hand, art historian Robert Hobbs sees the painting as a continuation of Hopper’s recurrent themes of American society in the late 1930s and the sparring that occurred between the countryside and the metropolitan cities. “Cape Cod Evening is concerned with the loss of a viable rural America: it focuses on those people and places that have been left in the wake of progress” (Hobbs). Nearly three quarters of the painting are occupied by the uncut grass and locust grove, which indicate nature’s reclamation of the land. “Hopper presents the viewer with an assemblage of carefully orchestrated dissonances that convey a generally pessimistic, skeptical attitude about humanity’s relationship with nature and human nature itself” (Torchia). These dissonances are, for instance, the marked difference in brushwork between all the human elements (the house and couple) and the natural elements in the painting. Nature in the painting is messy and chaotic, contrasting the uncut grass with the neatly built Victorian house in a dissonant manner; as if it were loosing power over the land it occupies, just as, perhaps, the countryside was loosing terrain towards the rising skylines.

Cape Cod Evening Conceptual Analysis Edward Hopper

Wheatfield With Crows Conceptual Analysis Vincent Van Gogh Wheatfield With Crows is one of Van Gogh’s last works, painted weeks before his suicide. There are numerous interpretations, most contradictory, of this painting. Similar to Hopper’s body of work, Van Gogh’s paintings are conceptually open and vague. The artist himself in a letter (seen right) he wrote to his brother Theo and Jo van Gogh-Bonger contradicts himself on what he wants to portray, thus presenting difficulties and possibly showing Van Gogh's own inner torment and despair. He describes the works as trying to express “sadness, extreme loneliness”, but also showing what he considers “healthy and fortifying about the countryside”. Its undeniable that the artwork is strong in nature and it could be portraying the power of the scenery. However, considering the palette chosen, that the sky is depicted turbulent and dark, and the use of the crows, it would be more plausible to say that the painting conveys the artist’s inner turmoil during the final weeks of his life. Despite being in SaintRémy, and allegedly having recovered, he still suffered from several mental disruptions and tensions with his brother Theo, who he cherished very much and felt as a burden to. The agitated brushwork and composition of elements undoubtedly convey angst, as this painting, at the very least, is not calm to look at.

Several symbolic elements in the painting are open to interpretation. One of the most powerful ones are the crows, and they have two opposing yet equally strong connotative analysis. The crows may be seen as coming towards the viewer or flying away from him or her. “If the viewer chooses to perceive the crows flying toward the foreground, then the work becomes more foreboding. If away, then a sense of relief is felt” (vggallery.com) Perhaps this ambiguity in the crows significance is meant portray Van Gogh’s own doubts and uncertain mental state. Nonetheless, “trying to find “symbolic interpretations” in Van Gogh’s paintings is a practice that, although attractive, can lead to unfounded conclusions” (Fernández, theartwolf.com); since, coming from such a convoluted artist, we can only assuredly interpret based on the artist’s own commentaries which, in the case of Van Gogh, are rather scarce.

“(…) I’ve painted another three large canvases since then. They’re immense stretches of wheatfields under turbulent skies, and I made a point of trying to express sadness, extreme loneliness. You’ll see this soon, I hope – for I hope to bring them to you in Paris as soon as possible, since I’d almost believe that these canvases will tell you what I can’t say in words, what I consider healthy and fortifying about the countryside. (…)”

- extract from a letter Van Gogh wrote to Theo van Gogh and Jo van Gogh-Bonger. Auvers-sur-Oise, on or about Thursday, 10 July 1890. http://www.vangoghletters.org/ vg/letters/let898/letter.html

Van Gogh, Vincent. Wheatfield With Crows. 1890, oil on canvas, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

Formal Qualities Similarities Attention to detail

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There are stark similarities between Hopper’s Nighthawks and Cape Cod Evening, as they both maintain his same style. One of the strongest similarities is Hopper’s obsessive attention to detail. In Nighthawks depicted in the perfectly rendered subject’s faces, the small napkin holder, salt and pepper, or even the halffilled coffee urns, which suggest the liveliness of this diner at other times of the day. In Cape Cod Evening , Hopper’s exquisite construction of the Victorian house, the small ornaments on the window or even the partly closed curtains which, just as the coffee urns Nighthawks, suggest life within this house.

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Formal elements as subjects of their own

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There are seldom similarities in formal qualities between Van Gogh’s and Hopper’s works, as both artists come from completely different artistic movements and have an utterly different style. Hopper is a realist while Van Gogh is a post-impressionist; and although they share similarities in the conceptual elements, as far as technique goes they are exceptionally dissimilar. Nonetheless, a similarity found is that they both have a very unique use a specific formal element of art. In Hopper’s case, his use of light is what set him apart. Hopper’s light is a tangible element, it posses weight and density and is a strong connotative component. On the other hand, Van Gogh’s brushwork has similar qualities to Hopper’s light, it is foremost in the painting and makes a statement of its own, almost adding a third dimension to an otherwise flat canvas. Both the light and brushwork in each respective artist are subjects of their own.

Color as a medium to express emotion 7

1, 3 Hopper, Edward. Nighthawks. 1942, oil on canvas, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago.

Another similarity between both artists’s formal elements is the use of color to create a specific mood and atmosphere to convey emotions. Both Hopper and Van Gogh were troubled artists and they reflect tense psychological layers in their work, one medium they use to do this, besides the subject matter, is the use of color. Both artists have limit themselves to a very specific palette of colors in each painting, using up to 5 hues at most. They rather work with the varying tonalities within each color spectrum to produce their paintings. Moreover, they also play with complementary contrasts to enhance the color in their works. For example, both in Hopper’s Cape Cod Evening and Nighthawks their is an evident contrast between the color areas of the paintings; being the former between the beige grass and blue trees, and the latter between inside of the diner and the exterior. The same is seen in Van Gogh’s use of dark blue in the sky to contrast with the yellow in the wheatfield.

4, 5, 6 Van Gogh, Vincent. Wheatfield With Crows. 1890, oil on canvas, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

2, 7 Hopper, Edward. Cape Cod Evening. 1939, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Differences Formal Qualities 1

Brushwork: Post-Impressionist vs Realist

The foremost difference between both Edward Hopper and Vincent Van Gogh is their brushwork, which is inherently influenced by the artistic movement to which each artist belonged. Hopper, being a realist, has a very tight brushwork with excruciating attention to fine details. His rendering of reality are very close to how a photograph would look like. On the other hand, Van Gogh’s brush work is utterly loose, one can observe the emotionalism of the artist in the strokes themselves, as they are very expressive and wild in nature. I have chosen the two images on the left to depict this difference since in them both artists are depicting the same subject matter: wheat. While in Hopper’s (bottom) painting the the grass is finely done, in which one can almost experience each strand of wheat differently, Van Gogh’s (top) rendering completely different. The base color is a continuous combination of yellows and the strands of wheat are thick, notorious brush strokes that make the use of the paint brush evident.

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Balance of Composition Another difference between both artist’s is the balance of their composition. This is specially evident between Nighthawks and Wheatfield With Crows. The composition in Van Gogh’s painting is evenly balanced, as the eye comfortably passes through all of the areas in the canvas following a diagonal path from bottom-left to top-right. On the contrary, the composition in Hopper’s work is tilted to the right, as the diner and the people in it are the focal point of the artwork and have most weight in the composition. This imbalances the composition as we are drawn to only observe the interior of the diner, further reinforcing the isolation for those who are not inside it.

2, 5 Hopper, Edward. Nighthawks. 1942, oil on canvas, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago.

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Perspective and Form

Saturation of Color

Another difference between Hopper and Van Gogh is their use of perspective and form. The American realist painter uses a defined perspective with clear vanishing points from which he build the illusion of tridimensionality. The are clear and recognizable forms and he creates the so called trompe l'oeil through shadows, perspective and light to give the painting tridimensionality. Van Gogh, on the other hand, decomposes the forms into a flat surface and makes little attempt to give them tridimensionality. His painting is rather a two dimensional work as opposed to Hopper.

It is true that the way Hopper and Van Gogh employ color to transmit emotion is one of their similarities, as explained in the previous screen.

However, the saturation of their palettes is different. While both artists use very rich colors, Hopper’s palette is more opaque, dull and less saturated; aiming for a rather pastel look. On the other hand, Van Gogh’s color pop out of the painting, they are highly saturated and extremely rich, despite being somewhat dark.

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1, 3, 7 Van Gogh, Vincent. Wheatfield With Crows. 1890, oil on canvas, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

4, 6 Hopper, Edward. Cape Cod Evening. 1939, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Conceptual Comparison Similarities Conceptually both artists share several similarities. The effect their works produce on the viewer and the emotions they explore are similar. Both Hopper and Van Gogh are concerned with the human condition, and their artworks depict anxiety, trouble, doubt and isolation. The sense of alienation felt when observing Nighthawks is felt when facing the desolated landscape Van Gogh paints upon us. Likewise, the feeling of imminent danger felt by the overcoming evening and the collie’s alert stance in Hopper’s Cape Cod Evening is similar when observing the crows in Van Gogh’s work, of which we don’t if they are coming towards or away from us. The use of subject matter, color and scenery in both artists is meant to convey negative, or rather uneasy, emotions and unsettle the viewer.

3 Hopper, Edward. Cape Cod Evening. 1939, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

2 Van Gogh, Vincent. Wheatfield With Crows. 1890, oil on canvas, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

1 Hopper, Edward. Nighthawks. 1942, oil on canvas, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago.

Moreover, another conceptual similarity between both artists is that these paintings reflect, to a great extent, the mishaps and vicissitudes of their personal lives. Hopper’s convoluted marriage is seen through the tensions between the male and female characters. The emotions generated by his personal issues, the domestic fights with Jo, and the loneliness they irradiated together, comes through in the form of scenes permeated by a sense of silence and estrangement, usually inhabited only by a pair of pensive figures who seem to be strangers to each other. By the same token, Van Gogh’s work reflects his unstable mental state. His fears, insecurities and depression come through in a painting that depicts contradictory emotions and leaves the viewer full of unanswered questions. Greatly influenced by their personal emotions, Van Gogh and Hopper used their works in one of the ways art works best: a way of catharsis, whether conscious or subconsciously.

Van Gogh, Vincent. Wheatfield With Crows. 1890, oil on canvas, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

Hopper, Edward. Nighthawks. 1942, oil on canvas, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago.

Hopper, Edward. Cape Cod Evening. 1939, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Conceptual Comparison Differences The two artists have, nonetheless, some conceptual differences. First of all, a connotative element present in Hopper’s work that is absent in Van Gogh’s is the heavy influence of the sociocultural context in his work. One of the main axis in Hopper’s work is precisely the context of American society during the 1930s and 40s; the wartime anxiety, the great depression, the search for identity and the sparring between countryside and cities. All of these elements come at play into the feelings of isolation and loneliness present in his work, and the reason they ripple with such force in American culture is because they are a psychological portrait of the people at the time. This layer of meaning is absent in Wheatfield With Crows, as this painting is based solely on the artist and his emotions regarding his own interaction with his environment and family members. Another conceptual difference between Van Gogh’s painting and Hopper’s works is that in the dutch’s painter’s artworks the feeling of a ‘remembered experience’ isn’t present. Hopper’s subject is instantly recognizable, as they are urban settings, however they are presented in a foreign manner. On the other hand, in Wheatfield With Crows this familiarity of the setting is absent, not everyone can relate to an open wheatfield. The emotions portrayed by the artist are recognizable, just as the landscape, but they fail to depict a transitory moment in our existence; a quality present not only in Cape Cod Evening and Nighthawks, but in absolutely every single painting by Hopper. Lastly, another conceptual difference between the two artists is the way the psychological tension in the artworks is achieved. While in Hopper’s paintings this is done through the broken interaction between the human figures and the urban environment, just as through fractured sexual relationships, Van Gogh’s case is different. Since his painting is absent of any human interaction, being this precisely one of the elements used to achieve tension, he resorts to using other foreboding symbolic elements, such as the flying crows, the windy grass or the stormy sky.

CONCLUSION To conclude, through this comparative study I was able to deepen my understanding of the the formal elements that compose each artwork and how they interact with the conceptual layers of meaning. It is remarkable to observe how these two seemingly dissimilar artists, coming from two completely different periods of time, sociocultural contexts and nationalities share so much in the way they express their inner feelings. This comparative study also allowed me to realize how artworks from two separate art movements, that at first eye appear to be completely different, share so many elements. It allowed me to be more critical towards art and to observe all the different formal and conceptual elements within a piece of art that most times aren’t so obvious at first glance, but they rather unfold themselves before you when in the exercise of analyzing and seeing the artwork from a critical point of view. Both Vincent Van Gogh and Edward Hopper were two exceptionally troubled artists. They were influenced by their personal contexts and each of them aims to transmit to the viewer the angst, confusion and loneliness they were experiencing. In the case of Hopper, this was also a feeling accompanied by the rest of the American population. In the case of Van Gogh, it was marked by his mental instabilities and the complicated relationship with his beloved brother. They each had a unique approach to a specific formal element of art, Hopper with light and Van Gogh with the expressiveness of the brushwork. Hopper’s emotionalism did not come through in the brush stroke as it did in Van Gogh. However they were both, in essence, turning the scenes they depicted into self portraits. The bottom line is that, whether its through passionate painting or alienating subjects, Hopper’s and Van Gogh’s work appeal to emotions we are all awfully too familiar with and relate to in the grimmest, and happiest, moments of our lives.

References Art Institute of Chicago. “Nighthawks.” The Art Institute of Chicago, 2013, www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/ 111628.

Fernández, G. “Vincent Van Gogh: Wheatfield With Crows.” Theartwolf.com, www.theartwolf.com/landscapes/vangogh-wheatfields-crows.htm .

Hobbs, Robert C. Edward Hopper (Washington, DC, 1987), 109–110.

Levin, Gail. Edward Hopper (New York, 1984), 57.

Torchia, Robert. “Edward Hopper/Cape Cod Evening/1939,” American Paintings, 1900–1945, NGA Online Editions vangoghmuseum.nl. “#50/125 Did Vincent Ever Use His Fingers to Paint?” Van Gogh Museum, www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/125-questions/questions-and-answers/question-50-of-125.

"Vincent van Gogh Artist Overview and Analysis". [Internet]. 2018. TheArtStory.org Content compiled and written by The Art Story Contributors Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors Available from: http://www.theartstory.org/artist-van-gogh-vincent.htm [Accessed 23 Feb 2018] vggallery.com. Vincent Van Gogh: The Paintings (Wheat Field with Crows), www.vggallery.com/painting/ p_0779.htm#analysis.

Zapella, Christine. “Hopper, Nighthawks.” Khan Academy, Khan Academy, www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ art-1010/art-between-wars/american-art-wwii/a/hopper-nighthawks.

Artworks Hopper, Edward. Nighthawks. 1942, oil on canvas, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago.

Hopper, Edward. Cape Cod Evening. 1939, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. Van Gogh, Vincent. Wheatfield With Crows. 1890, oil on canvas, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam