Edward Hopper

Happy Birthday Edward Hopper!! You may have noticed on the Google page, that it is also Alexander Calder's birthday today. I wrote about him last year...check out today's date on http://www.famousartistsbirthdays.blogspot.com/ So today I want to write about American painter Edward Hopper, born in 1882. In his city scenes, time stops and the viewer is treated to a slice of life. Eleven A.M. affords us a new look at the female nude (especially when compared to, say, Titian's Venus of Urbino, which I had the distinct pleasure of viewing on my recent trip to Italy). In Hopper's scene, we see an introspective woman gazing out the window of, presumably, a hotel room. She seems in deep thought, as the Titian, however in Hopper's we are not treated to the vivid fabrics and furnishings, but rather the nude is seated in nondescript surroundings. Likewise the flawless face of Titian's nude stares out at us, while Hopper's woman's face is obscured by her flowing hair.