Light emerging from Edward Hopper’s childhood birthplace/room in Nyack, N.Y. (Gunther photo)
February 11, 2019
By Arthur H. Gunther III
(also on Facebook)
Imagine being born into light, not necessarily spiritual though it cannot be denied. The first opening of the child’s eyes, then awakening each morning into young adulthood with strong, white/yellow luminescence bathing the room, moving along the walls, onto the bed, a life of its own as the sun rises.
This was the daily world of Edward Hopper, the famed American realist painter born July 22, 1882, in Nyack, N.Y.
The son of a village shop owner and a mother who was artistic, the young Hopper was uncharacteristically encouraged to be creative, to draw, his parents simply insisting that he attend an art school that would prepare him for a living in illustration.
But the young Hopper, who would hatch himself from long gestation to give the world such classics as “Nighthawks” and “Early Sunday Morning,” did not enjoy the working world.
Doubtless he was always thinking back to the utter brightness of his childhood room, the magnificent Hudson River light shooting up Second Avenue through two front windows to awaken him to dreams not yet realized.
The man who said “… what I wanted to do was paint sunlight on the side of a house” was swaddled, then reared and always infused with light. He gave us that visibility in his extraordinary paintings.
The writer is a retired newspaperman. ahgunther@yahoo.com or Facebook Messenger.