Heart of Arts

I love the Seattle Art Museum. I mean it when I say “looooooove”. That grand staircase (remember before the remodel?), the lofty ceilings, the hush-hush, and clamoring to get up close … like most houses of art, it's something like a church, complete with worshipers, leaps of faith, and miracles. Stand before one of those juicy impressionists and you’ll know what I mean.


In 1991, my high school art teacher bedecked in the proper vestments for a priestess of art—beads, turban, and mumu—took our class to the grand opening of SAM’s new downtown location. On a rainy evening in December, we wrapped around 3 city blocks, squirming and shuffling for hours before arriving at the doors. I didn’t really get it at the time how awesome—speaking as my sophomore self—that event would be. I ascended the staircase to behold my first master painting, be challenged by a modern, and summon an opinion on “what does it mean?”. I was a convert.

My most recent trip to the museum was to see the special exhibit Edward Hopper’s Women. In truth, I didn’t expect to be so taken by these paintings. Some artists have an inexplicable ability to capture a living moment. Sure, that may be the goal of many, but something indefinable tips Edward Hopper’s scenes over a fine line to where the viewer and subject are in the same space and time. In quiet realism, it’s as if he has netted two figures in an exchange, caught momentarily behind a veneer of paint. If we just dismantle the frame and peel back the layers preserving them, the figures would blink twice and carry on into the next wing of the museum.

Perhaps this surreal experience of Hopper’s art is due in part to the fact that his paintings observe simple daily activities. Free of stereotype and pretension, there is nothing grand or posed, and you might see a similar scene in your own life. Approaching Chop Suey, I aim to join two friends for lunch, arriving just as one says “That’s ridiculous….” But alas, that IS a ridiculous impossibility and I must be satisfied as cohort to Hopper’s voyeurism.

While it's easy to identify with his "modern American woman", I have to appreciate the significance of Hopper’s portrayal of his subjects now a few generations removed, and how different the context of their lives. The scenes in his paintings are mundane at first glance, but they record evidence of a profound shift in 1920’s American society. These women were the first to enter urban work and social spaces as independent entities, out of the private realm and into the previously male-dominated public sphere. The complexity of this motion is captured in the shades of mood Hopper shows in his paintings… a single woman’s vulnerability in a café, loneliness in an automat, distraction at a movie… all conveying what is most evident in Compartment C. An anonymous woman on a train sits in green cabin, reading quietly as the world rushes by, or rather, look closer, she is rushing forward.

Next stop for me? A Quartet of Suits on the 4th floor looks interesting…
[Originally posted to InspiredRetailer.com/blog, February 2009]