Michael Britton

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Edward Hopper:

The Understructure of
Nighthawks
Edward Hopper (1889-1967) is conEdward Hopper, Nighthawks, 152.4 x 84.1cm, 1942
sidered the quintessential realist
painter of mid 20th century New
York life. He studied painting with Robert Henri, one of Americas most influential instructors whose
book The Art Spirit is still widely read, from 1903 to 1906. Hopper was a devoted fan of cinema
and the theatre and his interest in stage design and cinematic techniques played a large part in his
compositions.
Hopper is often said to be the master painter of urban alienation and loneliness. He chafed under this
designation and felt that this loneliness thing is overdone. Hopper was reclusive and throughout his life
felt frustrated and awkward with human relationships. Many of his works evoke a longing to escape.
Hopper is a synthesizer of reality, his process is about memory. The locales of his narratives never
existed; they are fragments of seen and recorded ephemeral that are extrapolated and fused into a reality that invokes the known. Phillies Diner is a fabrication. But, still, people wander Sheridan Square
in New York seeking out the actual location of Nighthawks. It is believed to have been Crawfords
Luncheonette that was once behind the Loews Sheridan Theatre on Greenwich Avenue. Hopper stated
that Nighthawks was a restaurant on New Yorks Greenwich Avenue where two streets meet,

Great art is the outward expression of an inner life

in the artist, and this inner life will result in his
personal vision of the world. Edward Hopper
A theory is passed around that Hopper plucked the
window of Phillies Diner from the curvilinear glass
prow of the Flatiron Building (23rd Street and Fifth
Avenue in New York). That window is visible in this
April 1917 photograph.

The railway tenement in the background bears a strong resemblance to Early Sunday Morning, 1930.
It is a common practice for painters to employ a recurrent motif from one painting to the next. The
building that was the subject for Early Sunday Morning was demolished in 1936. Nighthawks was
completed in 1942.
As artists we should want to create works
that are of their own reality that still speak
to a specific time and place. Art demands
more than merely copying and committing
to canvas what we see. Of course, when
we are learning how to draw and acquiriing
the craft of our trade we strive to transcribe
what is before us. In a portrait drawing
class the agenda is to effect a likeness and
highly plausible structure of bone, muscle
and expression. Without the skill of being
able to draw and paint well we are sorely
limited in further developing our expression.
In this lesson we will explore the developmental synthesis and understructure of
Nighthawks using Hoppers own drawings arranged in their logical sequence.

From 1919 to the early 1920s Yale University published a

monthly magazine devoted to pictorial design called The Diagonal which was written by Jay Hambidge. Hambidge claimed to
have rediscovered the ancient principles of Greek design and
Natural Design Law. Such a claim was a bit overreaching as
artists such as Degas, Corot, Manet, etc. were well acquainted
with the principles of dynamic symmetry and symphonic composition.
Nevertheless, The Diagonal was avidly read by its small following of artists which included Henri and Hopper. A significant
part of Hoppers sense of stillness in his painting is owed to the
underlying pictorial divisions of harmony.
It is impolite to say this but Hopper was not a particularly
gifted draughtsman, his figures are awkward and his portraits
uninspiring. Nor am I particularly taken with the abstract structural surface of his paintingsthey are too clean and lacking
scar tissue and layerings of meaning and processthis is the
scraping and fluing of pigment, the melodies of brush strokes. Hoppers paint surface is too
mechanical, almost non-autographic and impersonal ... alienating ... kind of like eating alone amongst
strangers in a diner ...

The painting process in Self Portrait is primarily spotting

which was the method taught in most New York City
art schools in the earlier part of the twentieth century.
This method was introduced by William Merritt Chase and
Charles Hawthorne.
By the 1970s the spotting method died a slow lingering
death and was pretty much abandoned in the 1980s.
Spotting is not a style of painting but a training method.
One begins by first striking the arabesque with only a few
lines, no more than four indicators and then spotting in a
few premise notes of color to set the key. From there you
lay in a color note, no larger than a nickel, applying one
next to the other.

Edward Hopper, Self Portrait, 1925

This quick sketch is indicative of
Hoppers thinking process in marrying the westside window of the
Flatiron buildings prow to the place
where two streets meet. It is an
idea, the first initial step in building a
narrative.
The best painters, and this includes
realist painters, think in terms of
abstract shapes and their interactions or rhythms.
Lesser painters think of things, i.e.,
a figure, a boat at a dock, etc.
Illustrations and renderings speak of
things, good paintings possess their
own reality. There are no figures in
this sketch; Hopper prime concern is
structure and how the narrative will fit
together.

The power of Hoppers paintings lie in their understructure

of pictorial divisions and rhythms. In the below sketch
is Hoppers initial idea for Nighthawks. It is a minimal
abstract consideration of how an element fits within a
canvas.

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The architecture and relationships of shape are further developed. The edge of the diners window
at a will soon be determined at the reciprocal. For the moment, however, this decision has not
been arrived at.
There are three considerations at work here: first, is finding the edge of the canvas. Hopper has
carefully measured the dimensions of his pictorial surface (the canvas) with a ruler. The perspective
is a minor consideration and readily done by eye.
On an equal footing with the height to width proportion of the canvas is the rhythmic relationship of
shape b to shape c. Shapes like color possess harmonious relationships. Unfortunately, unlike color
there is no chart to refer to. There have been attempts to catalogue shape relationships but none
have been universally successful.
This relationship, or rhythm, of b to c will change over the course of Nighthawks development.

Hopper has maintained the same canvas proportions as the earlier sketch but has further developed,
or synthesized, his composition with an initial consideration of the light and dark pattern which alters
the rhythm dramatically. A more powerful and the composition is starting to gel.

Symphonic Composition | the harmonic

divisions of pictorial space Workshop
If a hierarchy is applied to the visual craft of painting, I believe
that both drawing and color would be second to composition.
They are all critically important, but it is composition that binds
and moves the viewers eye throughout a painting in a rhythmic
cadence.
Rhythm is the primary conduit to the viewers viscera. It is what
moves and carries the emotional qualities. The active force of
music is rhythm. It is the same with painting.
Once you learn the basic keys of Symphonic Composition, you
will recognize it in many great works of art and apply it to your
own work. Get more info here.

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x1

R-1

L-1

x1

Hopper has now decided upon a canvas shape whose height to width proportion is 1.81. The final
dimension of the painting will be 152.4 cm by 84.1 cm.
Dynamic rectangles have complementaries just like color. Nighthawks canvas is the complementary
shape of the 5 dynamic rectangle. In the above illustration I have superimposed an elementary
dynamic analysis on top of Hoppers sketch. I think that someone without an understanding of
symphonic composition can at least feel Hoppers thinking process.
The math for determining a dynamic rectangles shape is fairly straightforward: A complementary
shape is the difference between a dynamic rectangle and a square whose value is 1.
The value of 5 is 2.236. In order to determine the difference between 2.236 and the square we
need to first reduce, or pack up, 5 to its reciprocal value. Rather than getting into the actual math
here, just grap your calculator and punch in 5 then hit the button and then the 1/x button (thats the
reciprocal key) and youll get 0.4472. No worries!
Now subract 0.4472 from 1 and the result is 0.5528. Hit the reciprocal key (1/x) to unpack the
equation and we end up with 1.808972. Since we do not need to be working within several thousands
of a centimeter just round up the number to 1.81. A hundredth of a centimeter is close enough.
The main harmonic divisions are the reciprocals and the two rabatements. R-1 is the rabatement
(applying a square onto the end of a canvas) from the right-hand side. L-1 is from the left.

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Lets pause for a moment of honesty. The vast majority of art students could not care less about
harmonic divisions or understructure. Understandably we all want to get on with the business of
expression and it all boils down to what you want from your art. The fact remains that every major
painting possesses a powerful understructure of harmonic division and proportion, rhythm, color paths
and a striking Notan.
Of course your first agenda is to learn
how to draw and the physical application
of paintyour mediums, the handling, color
interaction, etc. That is only the beginning.
Think of your art as a life-long voyage of
discovery. There will be both pleasant and
difficult passages. The true artist does not
abandon ship in the midst of a storm, they
stick with it.
Love him or hate him there is no denying
that the British painter, Francis Bacon,
ranks as one of the best of the 20th Century.
As radical as this painting (this is the
third panel of the Crucifixion tryptich) was
in 1944 it did not come out of nowhere.
Bacons painting practice was a process of
extrapolation he dug into his unconscious
mind by pushing paint (color, shape and
rhythm) until an arrangment was met. It is
the same process as Hoppers Nighthawks.
From his working studies and pochades
Bacon would intensify the tension of the
shapes into the final composition.
This canvas is a (the square root of the
golden rectangle) proportion. Using the root
of the golden number, the foundational numeral of harmony and civilization, contrasted with a howling
shape grown of the horrors of the Second World War is a nice touch.
For those painters whose interest is only expression there is serious pause for thought here: if Bacon
did not utilize a powerful understructure it is doubtful that this painting would have the power that it
does. I can think of no other painting in the 20th Century that matches the expressive impact that
the Crucifixion tryptich has.
Lets now return to our regularly scheduled program ...

Although these images are unfortunately cropped we can still study the ongoing synthesis of
Nighthawks. In the top image the figures and windows of the back building are awkwardly large.
Hopper has corrected this in the lower drawing.
The pose of the figures have also been carefully considered. Even the condiments.

It is always a matter of give and take, going forward and taking a step back: that is the process of
making art. After a multitude of preparatory sketches Hopper has now turned to the Notan which
is the harmonious arrangement of light and dark. If the composition works well in the Notan it will
work well in the painting.
Hoppers agenda henceforth will be the color studies.

Reducing a painting to its elemental abstract shapes teaches us volumes about the power of rhythm
and pattern in composition. You do not want to reduce a painting neatly with ruled lines. Instead let
the brush and the pigment do all of the talking.
Eliminating all distracting elements and getting to the machinery of the understructure we can readily
see how the interlocking thrust of the indigo shape wedged into the tinted yellows opposing wedge
effects a dynamic movement (velocity).
A subtle left to right color pathway of yellow ochre + shade to yellow ochre to yellow ochre + tint
tempers the wedging force and guides the viewers eye gently through the composition.
Countering these movements is the secondary rhythm of the red + shade shapes of the counter and
the railway tenement across the street whose window shapes march us right back into the diner
as if we forgot to pick up our change.

The details and figures in the painting tell the story but it is all held together by the underlying
structures of composition. The lesson we learn from Hopper is the importance of investigation and of
doing studies and, most importantly, exploring new avenues of expression.
Going forward in your art will often entail going down the wrong path. When that happens it is always
worth remembering that if a venue does not work out we can always go back to our starting point
and then proceedi down a different path.
It may take many paths but you only need the one to fully enrich your art making.

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