isolation

Isolation

by Bob on May 5, 2007

A brilliant painting just rolled into the Boston Museum of Fine Arts recently. "The Nighthawks" by Edward Hopper. It shows a few late-nighters in the wee hours in a corner diner. Hopper knew how to capture the mood and contradiction of the isolation at the hour and the companionship in the diner, with the fluidity of the counter server man. The patrons are possibly feeling together whilst there or not. Or it's very alienated. One can't know easily from the painting. That is the elasticity of art on human perception. It is a picture of a diner in New York City's Greenwich Village near to where Hopper lived. It has been called "Hopper at his most intrusive and most discreet".

One is reminded of the song "Connections" by the band Elastica. One lyric in it is "But somehow the vital connection is made". Indeed.

Isolated yet together. Together yet isolated.

Of course a brilliant parody of Hopper's painting was "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Gottfried Helnwein. It shows instead of the anonymous patrons Hooper portrayed, Helnwein has Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Elvis Presley and Humphrey Bogart in this wee-hour diner. And their broken dreams. They all died before their time. Or expected time. Or hoped-for time. In a sense, everyone dies when they should by definition. But we feel some were taken too soon.

So, we have it. Isolation and yet togetherness in the dark hour of the soul, according to Friedrich Nietzsche and his comments. 3am is always the dark hour of the soul he said. He also said the only consolation was that one could get out of it all.

Edward Hopper anticipated our modern isolation. An amazing insight in 1942 in New York City's Greenwich Village. And later for Gottfried Helnwein to see what Hopper really meant.