Synthesis Hopper.
During all this year, we studied the notion of power.
In politics and social science, power is the ability to influence the behavior of people.
In order to live together member of a community accept rules, regulations, laws.
This helps create social cohesion but can also lead to conflicts and tencion.
But we studied a theme which is seldom a source of conflict, our theme is the power of art.
In fact, art has been, during a long time the best way to express, to denounce or criticise.
We notably studied the power of art with Edward Hopper, who has been a famous American painter and printmaker.
He was born in 1882 and died in 1967, and during his 85 years of life; he painted many of works, which are today known as part of the discourse of anti-urbanism.
We notably studied 18 works and focus on 2 paintings, Approaching a city (1946) and Nightawks (1942)
So, what extent those works contributed to the discourse of anti-urbanism ?
In the first place we are going to talk about anti-urbanism then we going to see, how Hopper's works contributed to this discourse ?
1) Definition of anti-urbanism and famous people who contributed in.
a) A discourse of fear of the city.
- The discourse of the attract for the nature.
-Give a negative representation of urban place.
→ New-York = place for his most famous works.
b) An eclectic influence.
- Film noir genre ( to his point of view; to the paintings darkness, strangeness).
-Valasquez (rural landscape).
- Picasso (one of the most known).
-Henri David Thoreau ( doc perso ) : main idea's which is Walden : isolation, nature quitness.
→ transcendentalism ; the apology of the nature doesn't be a litterary theme.
2) How Hopper's paintings contributed to anti-urbanism ?
a) Urban landscapes.
-Isolation : *never communication, look parallelism ( Nighthawks ).
*anonymity (hotel room).
-Negative vision : insipid and dark colors ; strainght lines ; geometrical forms and dirty street (Approaching a city).
-All of these elements creats several feelings like oppression, emprisonment, isolation, stress by a strict and rigorous technic.
b) Rural landscapes.
-to make the contrast.
-create the feeling of peace with pastel colors.
-There is more life (as in Cap cop evening with the dog which plays).
-Countryside seems to be quiet.
-People want to go to the countryside to escape the city's dangers.
To conclude we can say that because of the contrast between urban and rural scenes, we can see this discourse of anti-urbanism.
And we can say that the power of art may be a ery good way to denounce urban life.
January 2016
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