The Ineffable Understanding of Solitude

Zhenping Wang in an essay “The Mind in Motion: Hopper’s Women through Sartre’s Existential Freedom” presents Edward Hopper’s paintings of women posed in solitude and argues that Hopper was influenced by the philosophy of Jean Paul Sartre.  In referring to the women subjects he states “Being in outward solitude, they are allowed to enjoy the inward freedom to desire, to imagine, and to act (167)."  He further contends that this implies the potential for individual agency by the women subjects.

Edward Hopper's The Automat (1927) is from the permanent collection of the Des Moines Art Center. The woman subject, still and silent, fashionably dressed, is gazing into her coffee cup in a patently urban setting. Her mood seems contemplative. Is she attuned to her secret desires? Does it suggest the freedom of Sartre's philosophy? 

                             Edward Hopper's Morning Sun (1929).  

The female subject was modeled after Hopper's wife Jo. Light is associated with creation; woman is associated with creation. Morning is associated with beginning anew. She is secluded in the privacy of her bedroom watchfully attuned to the new day.  Some see this scene representing the bleakness of the modern urban landscape, but it can be seen as representing a woman on the threshold of exploring Sartrean possibility--I prefer the latter.

                             Edward Hopper's Chop Suey (1929)   


Hopper biographer, Gail Levin, locates the Chop Suey restaurant, she says, "the setting recalled the inexpensive, second floor Chinese restaurant the Hoppers had been frequenting in Columbus Circle."  Part of the restaurant sign is shown in the painting.
  
According to galleryIntell "The very fact that the key figures in Edward Hopper’s ‘Chop Suey’ are two women dining alone at a restaurant is a testament to the fundamental changes in American society. Up until the 20’s, such behavior would have been construed as inappropriate, but the rise of feminism in the mid-1920’s contributed to gradual changes in such perceptions and restaurants began to post signs in their windows ‘Tables for Ladies’."

While we might hope for the female subjects to be sharing those secret desires and imaginings they each experience in solitude, their being together to share a meal and to have time together may be a sign of Sartrean freedom foreshadowing the forthcoming feminist movement.

Zhenping Wang's concluding words are an appropriate way to close, "Women figures who are seated, standing, or leaning forward are looking out the windows toward sunlight into the far distance in retrospection. They are performing much more than just imagining or anticipating the future activities they might get involved in. They are demonstrating their strong desires (sexual and beyond) for self-determination through their own perceptions and actions, exhibiting their ability of solitude, freedom, aggressiveness and the undefined. This ability is the individual agency of a human being, as Sartre calls in his existential term, the being-for-itself, the continuous inward capability to move oneself forward and project oneself far into the future."

Solitude!  Samuel Beckett said, "Art is the apotheosis of solitude" and Hopper's art reveals an understanding of solitude, as ineffable as the awe it inspires.