This is a great link from The Museum of Fine Arts-Boston to an interactive feature on painter Edward Hopper. People have interesting reactions to Hopper, sometimes loving his work or sometimes finding him a bit hollow and depressing. There's a deliberate emptiness to his style, but just like with any kind of existing space, how it affects you depends upon what you project into it. The painting pictured here, Room in Brooklyn, may seem really spare and like the woman facing the windows might be lonely, but I see it as beautifully uncluttered and an escape from the city, and that she's finally got a chance to sit quietly and clear her mind. Hopper's famous Nighthawks painting is also thought-provoking, making us wonder what's going on with the film noir-ish trio at the counter and how does the clerk kid feel in their presence, but his Office at Night has more tension to me, with the guy at the desk pretending not to notice his shapely most-likely secretary or file clerk Miss Whoever as darkness falls around them....
