Automat (Hopper): Difference between revisions

| image_file=HopperAutomatAutomat-edward-hopper-1927.jpg

| citymuseum=[[Des Moines Art Center]]

| museumcity=[[Des Moines Art Center]]

'''''Automat''''' is a [[1927 in art|1927]]oil painting by the [[Visual arts of the United States|American]] [[Realism (arts)|realist]] [[painting|painter]] [[Edward Hopper]]. The painting was first displayed on Valentine’sValentine's Day 1927 at the opening of Hopper’sHopper's second solo show, at the Rehn Galleries in [[New York City]]. By April it had been sold for $1,200 (${{formatnum:{{Inflation|US|1200|1927}}}} in {{Inflation-year|US}} dollars {{inflation-fn|US}}).<ref>Carol Troyen, ''Hopper in Gloucester,'' in Carol Troyen, Judith Barter, Janet Comey, [[Elliot Bostwick Davis]] and Ellen Roberts (eds.), ''Edward Hopper''. Boston: MFA Publications (Museum of Fine Arts), 2007, p. 72.</ref> The painting is today owned by the [[Des Moines Art Center]], in [[Iowa]].

Art critic Ivo Kranzfelder compares the subject matter of this painting (a young woman nursing a drink alone in a restaurant) to [[Édouard Manet]]'s ''[[The Plum]]'' and [[Edgar Degas]]'s ''[[L'Absinthe]]''.<ref>Ivo Kranzfelder, ''Hopper''. Cologne, Germany: [[Benedikt Taschen]], 2010, p. 146.</ref>—although unlike the subject in Degas's painting, the woman is introspective, rather than dissipated.

In an innovative twist, Hopper made the woman’swoman's legs the brightest spot in the painting, thereby "turning her into an object of desire" and "making the viewer a voyeur."<ref>Robert Hobbs, ''Edward Hopper''. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1987, p. 72.</ref> By today’stoday's standards this description seems overstated, but in 1927 the public display of women’swomen's legs was still a relatively novel phenomenon.

Hopper would make the crossed legs of a female subject the brightest spot on an otherwise dark canvas in a number of later paintings, including ''[[Compartment C, Car 293]]'' (1938)[http://artsandletters.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/hopper-compartment-c-car-293-image-geoffrey-clements-corbis.jpg] and ''[[Hotel Lobby]]'' (1943).[https://web.archive.org/web/20110707202148/http://ayiajavon.com/imd100/g2.jpg]<ref>The comparison between ''Automat'' and ''Hotel Lobby'' is made in Robert Hobbs, ''Edward Hopper.'' New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1987, p. 137.</ref> The female subject of his 1931 painting ''[[Barber Shop]]''[http://www.artsfairies.com/Edward_Hopper/Hopper_Edward_The_Barber_Shop.jpg] is also in a pose similar to the woman in ''Automat'', and the viewer's image of her is similarly bisected by a table. But the placing of the subject in a bright, populated place, at midday, makes the woman less isolated and vulnerable, and hence the viewer's gaze seems less intrusive.

Automats, which were open at all hours of the day, were also “busy, noisy and anonymous. They served more than ten thousand customers a day."<ref name="ReferenceB"/> Moreover, the woman is sitting in the least congenial spot in the entire restaurant for introspection. She has, as Troyen notes, the table nearest the door, and behind her, on her other side, is the staircase to the restaurant’srestaurant's below-ground level. Even if the restaurant were relatively empty, there would have been constant foot-traffic past her table. Thus, "the figure’s quiet, contemplative air," which is "out of step with the city’s energy, its pace and its mechanized rhythm,"<ref name="ReferenceB"/> is made even more noteworthy by the particularly busy spot in which she has chosen to sit.

Hopper’sHopper's paintings are frequently built around a [[Vignette (literature)|vignette]] that unfolds as the viewer gazes into a window, or out through a window. Sometimes, as in ''[[Railroad Sunset]]'' (1929),[http://www.sai.msu.su/cjackson/hopper/hopper12.jpg] ''[[Nighthawks (painting)|Nighthawks]]'' (1942) and ''[[Office in a Small City]]'' (1953), it is still possible to see details of the scene beyond even after Hopper has guided the viewer’sviewer's gaze through two panes of glass. When Hopper wishes to obscure the view, he tends to position the window at a sharp angle to the viewer’sviewer's vantage-point, or to block the view with curtains or blinds. Another favourite technique—used, for example, in ''[[Conference at Night]]'' (1949),[http://www.artsfairies.com/Edward_Hopper/Hopper_Edward_Conference_At_Night.jpg]—is to use bright light, flooding in from the exterior at a sharp angle from the sun or from an unseen streetlight, to illuminate a few mundane details within inches of the far side of the window, thereby throwing the deeper reaches of the view into shadow.

By way of comparison, in ''Automat'' the window dominates the painting, and yet "allows nothing of the street, or whatever else is outside, to be seen."<ref name="ReferenceA">Mark Strand, ''Hopper''. New York: Knopf, 2007, p. 43.</ref> The complete blackness outside is a departure both from Hopper’sHopper's usual techniques, and from realism, since a New York street at night is full of light from cars and street lamps. This complete emptiness allows the reflections from the interior to stand out more dramatically, and intensifies the viewer’sviewer's focus upon the woman.

The window conveys an impressionistic view, rather than one that is realistic, in another way. As [[Mark Strand]] notes, "The window reflects only the twin receding rows of ceiling lights and nothing else of the automat interior." It is possible that Hopper omitted these reflections in order to avoid distractions that might turn the viewer’sviewer's away from the woman. Strand, however, suggests an alternative reason why the woman’swoman's reflection is omitted:

The focusing effect of the blank window behind the woman can be seen most clearly when it is contrasted with ''[[Sunlight in a Cafeteria]]'' (1958),[http://www.museumsyndicate.com/images/1/9792.jpg]<ref>The comparison between ''Automat'' and ''Sunlight in a Cafeteria'' is made in Ivo Kranzfelder, ''Hopper''. Cologne, Germany: Benedikt Taschen, 2010, p. 146, and in Lloyd Goodrich, ''Edward Hopper''. New York: Abradale Press / Harry N. Abrams, 1983, p. 133.</ref> one of Hopper’sHopper's late paintings. In that painting, a female and a male subject sit in an otherwise empty cafeteria in spots reminiscent of the tables occupied, respectively, by the female subject and the viewer in ''Automat''. Even the bowl of fruit on the windowsill in ''Automat'' has its parallel in a small potted plant on the windowsill in ''Sunlight in a Cafeteria''. But in ''Sunlight in a Cafeteria'', the well-illuminated street scene outside the large window seemingly distracts the man's attention from his counterpart, so that the two subjects "do not seem to be acting in the same scene, as it were."<ref>Rolf Gunter Renner, ''Edward Hopper''. Cologne, Germany: Benedikt Taschen, 1990, p. 81.</ref> By contrast, in ''Automat'' the viewer is fully engaged by the presence of the woman.

*''[[Nighthawks (painting)|Nighthawks]]'', Hopper's most famous painting.

== References ==

{{Edward Hopper}}