High noon
Edward Hopper is one of America’s finest artists that ever lived. His work has always been dominated with lonely people either looking outside the window or seated at the café table or just standing at the door staring anxiously outside. Usually, there is no presence of any activity within the pictures. The “high noon” is one of these paintings depicting a woman standing at the door staring outside, lit by direct sunlight and surrounded by an enormous house. The skies behind the house are large and very blank. This unusual composition, displaying a house cropped off at one of its sides gives an implication that the work is to be read from the right hand side towards the left. The horizontal lines have been used on the house in the painting gives an illustration of the four vertical chords in Hopper’s musical composition as implied by the painting. The dormer on the right hand side and the window on the same side can be taken to represent the first chord in hopper’s musical composition as implied by this painting. The next dormer together with the windows on the lower side comprises the second chord whereas the third chord consists of the last window and the large triangle located above it. The fourth chord is represented by the empty vertical patch of the land and the skies. The first three chords together form a wonderful rhythm whereas the very last beat is just lost into the landscape of the void and echoless space of vast fields of prairies as depicted in the painting. The chimney on the roof of the house plays a key role in striking the high note in the melody whereas the color used creates harmony as it matches with the russet band around the foundation of the house. The entire tune for the rhythm is then played to a bassline of the light-brown grasses in the prairies. Interestingly with this painting, the color used for the grass is taken up and brightened in the hair of the woman standing at the door of the house. On the other hand, the robe on the woman’s waist slightly darkens the blue sky to create a spectacular view of the painting. The use of the thin white clouds helps in harmonizing with the white color used on the walls of the house that are striated with the blue stripes. In addition, there is some slight appearance of the green color at the corners of the house, harmonizes splendidly with the green walls that can be seen through the last window of the house on the painting (Dayton Art institute).
This painting, despite its simplistic appearance, there is a lot of complexity associated with it, especially with regard to its meticulous color rhythm. Each of the four windows used on the building has its own significance. For instance, the dormer on the right-hand side has the blind drawn over its top half with curtains closed to the merest vertical slit, giving an impression of camouflage, since the eye cannot see past that. In the window that is below, it can be noted that the window is slightly parted in the middle with the long vertical separation in rhyme with the robe on the woman’s waist, which gives a suggestion of a probable speculative opening. It is also clear on the second dormer that the curtains are parted in an ardent dark rectangular shape echoing the black doorway under and signifying that the interior of the house is very blank; even when all the curtains are pulled there will be nothing to see except for the darkness. It is also easy to see from the painting that the curtains on the last window are open and a portion of the interior of the can be seen. When a closer look is taken to peep through the window, a triangular shape of the sun rays and a portion of the table and the chair and also a portion of an unrecognizable painting hanged on the wall (Dayton Art institute).
There is a strong connection between the windows and the woman standing on the doorway in this painting. For instance, the window on the right is open just like the woman standing on the door with an open dress, giving the attracting the viewer’s to be curious of knowing what is beyond. Hopper’s intention was to create a feeling of attraction and a desire within the viewer to know whatever is hidden behind the windows and the door and the clothing. Generally, there is something to do with loneliness, although this cannot be fathomed beyond what is displayed in the painting. The artist did not also show a path leading into and out of the house in addition to the house being located in a remote with a lot of emptiness. The carefully calculated triangles and rectangles on the façade of the house gives the house an unrealistic view and stretches its meaning beyond an ordinary house. This, coupled with the surrounding space summing up the meaning of the painting as a representation of America’s emptiness and the inner longing within most Americans (Dayton Art institute).
References
Dayton Art institute. American Emptiness: Edward Hopper, High Noon 1949. Retrieved on 26 Feb, 2014 from: < https://sites.google.com/site/beautyandterror/Home/american-emptiness >
