Soir Bleu

I've written here before about my love for Edward Hopper-esque paintings. But as Marvin Gaye would be the first to tell you, there ain't nothin' like the real thing.

There are so many Hopper portraits of lonely, isolated people unable to connect with themselves or anyone else, staring out windows or alone in a crowd at diners, it's hard to zone in on any one in particular (although for me, Nighthawks will always be the benchmark).

I'm not sure why I'm so drawn (SWIDT?) to these pictures, but I am.

Years ago the wife and I saw a Hopper exhibit at the Whitney in New York. It's one of the best exhibitions I've ever been to, and definitely my favorite (yes I look at other things besides comic book art).

Anyway, for some reason I was in a Hopper mood today, started going through his paintings and came across this one I'd forgotten about: Soir Bleu. Or as we say in English, Blue Night.

I don't know what to love about it first. The devastatingly sad and defeated clown (worked with him), as far from comical and funny as he could be. The far eastern lamps, swaying ever so slightly in the breeze. The eclectic cast of characters dining with and around the clown, including the man behind the post who looks suspiciously like Vincent Van Gogh.

Here is one of my favorite descriptions of what Hopper is trying to convey:

Soir Bleu is a vivid and monumental work painted in 1914, almost four years after Hopper's last sojourn in Paris. Its grand scale is an indication of how strong an impression Parisian life had made on the young Hopper.

At home in his New York studio, he created this melancholy allegory from reminiscences partly literary, partly art historical, and certainly personal. The artificiality of Soir Bleu is inevitable and intentional.

Hopper, as dramatist, has assembled a cast of characters and traditional types that play out timeless roles of courtship, solicitation, and tragic self-isolation. One of these characters is described in a preliminary drawing with a note, the shadowy isolated figure of the procurer seated alone at left. Hopper has also included a classically attired clown in white, a military officer in formal uniform, a bearded intellectual in a beret, perhaps an artist, and a well-dressed bourgeois couple. Standing beyond the balustrade, as though presiding over this mixed company, is a haughty beauty in gaudy maquillage, her painted face demanding attention in the brilliant glow of oriental lanterns in the cool blue night.

In Soir Bleu, we witness Hopper's early attempt to create, rather than merely record, a sophisticated, anti-sentimental allegory of adult city life. Back in America many years later, he would stage the masterpiece Nighthawks (1942) with all the worldly reality he sought in Soir Bleu but was too young to make emotionally convincing. However, this major early painting gives a clear indication of Hopper's enormous ambition for his art.

Now I realize no one comes to this blog for a discussion about the meaning of art, its nuances or relevance to the current culture. In fact I'm not sure why anyone comes to this blog at all. My guess is it's a combination of typing errors and glitchy routers.

Nonetheless, occasionally I like to take a break from writing snarky posts, agency bashing and random rambling and appreciate the inspiring, creative genius of true masters like Hopper.

You might be concerned about the fact I'm attracted to paintings that leave me feeling melancholy, depressed and isolated. Don't be.

I work in advertising. I'm used to it.

What's the attraction

I've always been attracted to a certain theme in art and photography. More than just "That's a nice picture." or "Huh. Interesting." I'm talking about images that draw me in, make me feel something on a visceral level.

Images like this one my friend Ron posted on his Facebook page.

I'm not sure what it says about me that I gravitate mostly to either solitary figures, representations of loneliness or images of disparate people, together and at the same time isolated in their own thoughts like those in much of Edward Hopper's work, especially his classic, essential Nighthawks.

It probably says I need something as a counterpoint to all the happiness and joy I put out into the world. Either that or I need help. Sometimes it's hard to tell.

Maybe I'm attracted to them because of the universality of the emotions. Aren't we all a stuffed teddy bear, cast out to the side of the road?

Okay. Maybe not.

The point is there seems to be more of a reality and truth to these images than ones where people are laughing, just a little too happy despite the reality of the world around them. Like the people who dance in commercials because their detergent gets the clothes brighter, or they're finally free of the constipation that's been plaguing them (hard to dance when you're constipated, so I hear).

Many of my friends find it an interesting contrast that I usually go for the joke at any cost, yet I'm a sucker for a sad image.

I would've been great in a Woody Allen film.

Nighthawks at the Starbucks

Friday night arrived like a bleached blonde actress late for a premiere. I was glad she showed, but wondered what took her so long.

As I sipped on a something-cino at one of my branch offices of Starbucks, I decided to put the time to good use, open my laptop and work on this post. I didn’t have any idea what I wanted to say, but if I let that stop me I’d never post anything.

I paused a minute and realized I wasn’t the only sucker in the joint with an open laptop. The difference was mine was taking dictation, and theirs were taking orders that would never be served on dreams that would never come true.

It was late. Raining. The streets were slicker than the people driving them. Even so, you couldn’t see their reflections. Vampires don’t have any.

Looking out the floor to ceiling window, I appreciated how Edward Hopper-esque the view was from the outside looking in. Outside looking in. A point of view most of these night crawlers were used to.

The difference was Hopper was an artist. I was just a guy with a blog to write.

Still, all that foam and froth and rain and false hope put me in a mood. The kind people keep telling me to snap out of.

I don't know if it was the rain or the caffeine, but I decided it was time to rattle the cage. My cage. Clear the webs out of the corners and quiet the critics in my head. It was going to be a departure, designed to have people take notice. Deliberate. Some might say calculated. I never cared what they said. Why start now?

Serious. Thought provoking. No easy jokes. No witty entendres. It was going to be a thought piece, something pining the state of the human race and it’s puny significance in the bigger scheme of things. They say write what you know. I work in advertising don’t I?

Friday night had greatness about it. Potential. I’d seen it before once when it was passing through. But this time it brought luggage. It was planning to stay for a while.

Well, did you buy it? Nah, didn’t think so. Just funnin’ with you. Thought provoking? Please. Like you come here for that.

No, it’s just going to be the usual random, Andy Rooney like crap you’ve come to expect.

Anyway, the post you’re reading right now is not the one I posted from Starbuck’s. I didn’t post it from there because out of 7,000 Starbuck's I pick the one where the free wi-fi goes out. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Gone with the wind.

This Starbuck’s was near a college (aren’t they all?), so there were a lot of laptops open and struggling to find a connection. Just like their owners. (BAM! Insight on the human condition – deal with it!).

At first I thought I was the only one who couldn’t get on the interwebs. But as I looked around, I saw the equally frustrated expressions on the faces of my late night coffee companions.

Anyway, wrote this while I was there. Then posted it today, Saturday. From another Starbuck's.

Thought provoking, no?

No.