Edward Hopper at the Whitney Museum
He went to Paris and knew firsthand Fauvism and Cubism. But he was not interested in the exuberance of colors per se or in the play with volumes. He went back to New York and fixed the way we perceive the urban landscape of the American city for the ages. Drab volumes, dark masses of buildings, colossal bridges and factories. The beauty of the fire hydrant; the rhythm of nondescript windows. And inside all this, the solitude of human beings who, even when together, never form a group, never smile and never laugh. They are alone together. He could see that in New York because he was an outsider, preferred as a painter to remain an outsider who commuted from the suburbs. Indeed most of his paintings offer a glimpse into spaces where we never go. We stay outside the window and are left to imagine how these figures people their solitude.