Edward Hopper show at the MFA

The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is exhibiting a collection of Edward Hopper paintings and prints until August 19th. However, it costs upwards of $20 for a single ticket (even with the student discount).

I'm going to be a bad art historian for a moment. Personally, I'm not one of those people who insists you need to see a work of art in person in order to understand it. Certainly it's helpful to see the colors, texture, and technique up close, especially if you plan to study it in depth. And originals just have a powerful quality to them that reproductions don't. But I'm more interested in the social and political context of art anyhow, so the formal properties often take a backseat. My recommendation is to forgo spending the money on the Hopper exhibit unless you're a big Hopper fan, or if you're one of those people who appreciates subtleties.

It is a very good exhibit, however. It covers a lot of ground over the course of Hopper's career. All the greatest hits are there, including Automat (1929), Chop Suey (1929), New York Movie (1939), Office at Night (1940), and of course, Nighthawks (1942). Several lighthouse paintings from Maine are also included, though they barely take up half a room. Disappointingly, most of the famous paintings (including Nighthawks) are glazed, and not very well. The MFA needs to invest in some better glare-free glass.


One of my very favorite paintings of all time hangs near the entrance: Summer Interior (1909). I've seen it twice, once at its permanent home at the Whitney and once in this exhibit. Because of its content, this is not the sort of picture that will end up on the postcards or T-shirts sold in the museum gift shop. The MFA skips over it on their website. It was one of Hopper's early works, and you can see him starting to play with light in interesting ways, like in the solid block of sun and the yellow light filtering through the blinds on the wall on the right. What I really love about this painting is the way it makes me feel. Yeah, I know that's vague. So many of Hopper's works deal with loneliness, and of all of them, I think this is the best. He didn't want his paintings to tell stories, but you just can't help creating a narrative to go along with this one. I'm imagining that her lover has just left her, perhaps for good. It's quiet ("almost too quiet"), and probably the only sounds are the ticking clock on the mantle and the street noise filtering through the window. The bedsheets are still rumpled, she's barely half dressed, and her head is turned down to hide her face. Her hand is shoved between her thighs so her arm looks like it's cut off at the wrist. The act of sitting on the floor in that contorted pose with the sheets dragged down, instead of sitting on the bed, is what makes the scene disturbing. It tells us she's not just relaxing on a hot morning. Something is clearly wrong. The painting is provocative, but her pose is not meant to be sexy. She's exhausted.

So in summary, go see this exhibition if you can bear to part with $21. But if you think you're going to race through it in a half an hour and just look at the highlights, you can afford to skip it.