EDWARD HOPPER (1882-1967)
Blackhead (50 m-150 ft)
United States of America (Maine)
1. In Blackhead, Monhegan, 1916-19,oil on canvas, Whitney Museum of American Art,
The mountain
Blackhead (50m-150 ft) are northside cliffs situated on Monhegan, Manana
Island, that have drawn the interest of many artists. The beginnings
of the art colony on Monhegan date to the mid-19th century; by 1890, it
was firmly established. Two of the early artists in residence from the
1890s, William Henry Singer (1868–1943) and Martin Borgord (1869–1935),
left Monhegan to study at the Académie Julian in Paris in 1901. Among
many early members who found inspiration on the island were summer
visitors from the New York School of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of
the Fine Arts, such as Robert Henri, Frederick Waugh, George Bellows, Edward Hopper and Rockwell Kent. The Monhegan Museum celebrated more the continuing draw of the island for artists in a 2014 exhibit entitled, “The Famous and the Forgotten: Revisiting Monhegan’s Celebrated 1914 Art Exhibition.
Monhegan is a plantation in Lincoln County, Maine, United States, about
12 nautical miles (22 km) off the mainland. The population was 75 at the
2000 census. The plantation comprises its namesake island and the
uninhabited neighboring island of Manana. The island is accessible by
scheduled boat service from Boothbay Harbor, New Harbor and Port Clyde.
It was designated a National Natural Landmark for its coastal and island
flora in 1966.[
The name Monhegan derives from Monchiggon, Algonquian for "out-to-sea island."
European explorers Martin Pring visited in 1603, Samuel de Champlain in
1604, George Weymouth in 1605 and Captain John Smith in 1614. The
island got its start as a British fishing camp prior to settlement of
the Plymouth Colony. Cod was harvested from the rich fishing grounds of
the Gulf of Maine, then dried on fish flakes before shipment to Europe. A
trading post was built to conduct business with the Indians,
particularly in the lucrative fur trade. It was Monhegan traders who
taught English to Samoset, the sagamore who in 1621 startled the
Pilgrims by boldly walking into their new village at Plymouth and
saying: "Welcome, Englishmen."
Edward Hopper was a American realist painter and printmaker.
Conservative in politics
and social matters (Hopper asserted for example that "artists' lives
should be written by people very close to them"), he
accepted things as they were and displayed a lack of idealism. Cultured
and sophisticated, he was well-read, and many of his paintings show
figures reading. He
was generally good company and unperturbed by silences, though
sometimes taciturn, grumpy, or detached. He was always serious about his
art and the art of others, and when asked would return frank opinions.
Hopper's most systematic
declaration of his philosophy as an artist was given in a handwritten
note, entitled "Statement", submitted in 1953 to the journal, Reality:
"Great art is the
outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and this inner life
will result in his personal vision of the world. No amount of skillful
invention can replace the essential element of imagination. One of the
weaknesses of much abstract painting is the attempt to substitute the
inventions of the human intellect for a private imaginative conception.
The inner life of a
human being is a vast and varied realm and does not concern itself alone
with stimulating arrangements of color, form and design.
The term life used in
art is something not to be held in contempt, for it implies all of
existence and the province of art is to react to it and not to shun it.
Painting will have to deal more fully and less obliquely with life and nature's phenomena before it can again become great."
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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau
