Hopper, Katz and O'Halloran

I’ve been to the Edward Hopper exhibit at the Whitney several times now, both because it’s excellent, as a career summary and an argument about Hopper’s work, and also because I find myself asking so many questions I can’t answer while I’m there. Naïve questions, mostly, as most of my questions are when it comes to visual art. Like, and most recurringly, how it can be possible for paint to serve as such a powerful vehicle for consciousness. I often claim that literature is the best technology we have for the communication of inwardness, and I think I’m right; but Hopper makes a very strong case for painting’s power in this regard. This is part of what makes Hopper—who only painted two or three canvases a year, and who spent much of the rest of his time devouring books—such a literary painter.