Nighthawks

My First Impressions:

In this painting, there is a dark background and a well-lit foreground. This demonstrates emphasis, because Hopper wants to emphasize the people and the restaurant in the front of the painting. The walls are white, and it is brightly lit. Also, maybe he wanted to display the man behind the bar, because the eye goes to him almost immediately. He is dressed in white, which contrasts against the dark colored bar, and the other people at the bar, who are wearing dark colors. I think that the story that he is trying to tell with this painting is the story of people who are out late at night when no one else is awake. This bar is also the only place open on the street. There is a couple, a man and a woman, sitting together at the edge of the bar, and there is a man, sitting alone, with his back to the window. This makes that man a little bit more mysterious, because you can only see his back, and there is shadow over his face and hat. It makes you think that he is lonely. 

What I've Learned:

The painting is of a typical diner during the era, one near where Edward Hopper lived, in Greenwich Village. Light is always a central part of Hopper's paintings, and it is definitely important in this painting. The whole mood relates to the lighting and the placement of shadows. Hopper usually painted places important to him, or just familiar. Somewhere that he had been many times. He rarely painted from imagination. This local diner is no exception. However, he took something so incredibly simple, a diner that he saw all the time, and gave it a story and a specific mood, just by using the lighting.