Edward Hopper: A Book of Postcards
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,History & Criticism
Edward Hopper: A Book of Postcards Details
Before Edward Hopper, American landscape art sought dramatic topography and an idyllic, idealized nature, genteelly ignoring ordinary people and their prosaic endeavors and by-products. Hopper (1882 1967) answered that romantic tendency with a realism in which the ordinary houses and storefronts, trestles and telephone poles became an essential element of his work. For most of his 60-year career, Hopper divided his time between New York City and New England. He liked the straightforward light of Maine s big skies, and in his paintings the sky becomes an active element of the composition, raking farmhouse and sand dune with sunlight. By contrast, Hopper s city scenes are lit by a sun whose light is filtered by big-city particulates and big-city blues; it illuminates storefronts and tablecloths with a gentle, elegiac touch. Presented here are thirty classic Hoppers, urban and pastoral, from the world s largest repository of Hopper s work. Pomegranate s books of postcards contain up to thirty top-quality reproductions bound together in a handy, artful collection. Easy to remove and produced on heavy card stock, these stunning postcards are a delight to the sender and receiver. Postcards are oversized and may require additional postage.
Reviews
This is a mixed bag of Hopper's art works. I had hoped for ones from later in his career, which I prefer; but this collection has many from his earlier and mid-career. The product description says as much, so I can't say that I wasn't warned. Most of the cards are of individual 19th-century houses and tend to be very static; to my mind's eye, they lack the sense of 'life' and of 'being there' that can be found in similar scenes by Andrew Wyeth, for example. There a very few beach / water scenes, which are more vivid. Some are just strange: a wall of gray apartment buildings, a couple of old freighter ships, the very odd painting on the cover. About four of the cards have people in them, and I like these the best since they are what I think of as more 'typical' Hopper and give the viewer a focal point. My opinion: I would not buy this again -- all those cookie-cutter houses....
