Edward Hopper's Iconic Painting, "Nighthawks | Hacker News Reader

Edward Hopper's Iconic Painting, "Nighthawks

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This painting is in the Chicago Art Institute.

The two other iconic paintings in their collection are:

-Grant Wood's American Gothic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Gothic

-George Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Sunday_Afternoon_on_the_Isla...

All of these paintings were purchased for a tiny fraction of their current value (Hopper, $3,000; Seurat, $20,000).

https://ladykflo.com/a-sunday-on-la-grande-jatte-by-georges-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Institute_of_Chicago

All 3 are iconic. I wonder if the same curator acquired them.

Nighthawks shows up in this scene from one of the most iconic 80s teen movies, but the star of the scene is Pointillism:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vBBOMLURSGA&ra=m

Specifically the aforementioned Seurat which is what Cameron is standing in front of and staring at.

I visited the Art Institute last year and bought a print of Nighthawks from their museum store. It's one of my favorite paintings.

https://shop.artic.edu/products/291982

Nighthawks and Sunday Afternoon were both in the museum scene of Ferris Bueller's Day Off (but no American Gothic), which came from a personal connection John Hughes had with the Chicago Art Institute [1].

In particular, Cameron focuses on Sunday Afternoon going right up to an extreme close up down to individual dots where all detail is lost. Cameron focuses on the child, seemingly being without a mother.

Separately, American Gothic is one of the most important pieces from 20th century American art history. It was painted in 1930 and is seen as a symbol of the hardworking resilience of rural Americans at the time. This was early on in the Great Depression. It speaks to Protestant stoicism and while not directly relevant to nor painted in an area to be affected by the Dust Bowl, that event is so significant to the Midwest in the 1930s, you can't really ignore it.

When I was younger I didn't have as much of a reaction to Nighthawks but now? It seems like an early bellwether to the urban isolation and fragmentation of society in postwar America that has eventually come to pass. It's like this late night spot became a place for people to go who had nowhere else to go.

[1]: https://www.tiktok.com/@johnhughesmovies/video/7227281023661...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nighthawks_(Hopper)

Wikipedia has a higher quality version of the painting, click the image in the article to see it.

Yeah, it's great on my desktop. Love the article (well, both of them).

Always had a great nostalgia for this image. Is it just me, or do other night owls find it soothing, quiet, and productive for deep thoughts? (Even if it's just thoughts about games.)

This has recently been put back on display at The Art Institute in Chicago; and it is more wonderful in person. The interior glows with fluorescent light, a richness of color mixing that digital scans do not really capture yet.

Great Art Explained did a wonderful episode on this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKIbT-4UFaE

Also this connection to Hitchcock

https://youtu.be/JWl6E3GZkdQ

another video about the painting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gy76ERat1zg

For Hopper fans - the movie "Shirley: Visions of Reality" is a series of vignettes based on Hopper's paintings. Veeeeeery slow, but quite rewarding if you're into this sort of thing.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2636806/

The National Gallery in DC had a show of Hopper's works a number of years ago that I got to see.

Amazing work. He's one of my favorite artists. Nighthawks was there, great to see it in person.

The wine-pairing for this painting is listening to Night Moves by Bob Seger.

Thanks, didn't realize I needed this.

Personally, I prefer the languid ennui of Seger's Turn The Page when I view this artwork.

I agree. The sax intro locks in on it.

I don’t know why it makes me feel so calm looking at this painting. Something just feels normal and boring but a great sense of peace. Fast forward a few weeks, after a multiple week trip to Tokyo, I think I know why: a sense of solitude I haven’t experienced in the busy streets of Tokyo.

Is it me, or does this article presume a lot of prior knowledge? I had to look up who "Jo" and "Ed Staples" are, and figure out what it meant by "suggesting once again the resurgence of Hopper’s painterly alter ego".

There’s an old board game called ‘Masterpiece’, you buy and sell famous paintings and forgeries. You handle postcard sized prints that act as playing cards.

It’s a great game, teaches kids how to recognize artworks and artists. Nighthawks was always one of my favorite pieces to own.

Hah! I would play this at my Grandma's house in the mid 1980's and the game felt old, even then! I eventually completely forgot about it.

But my sister and I must have enjoyed it enough, because for my birthday a few years ago, she purchased a used copy for me off of eBay.

does hn's title rewriter apply s/(^"|"$)// blindly

"Nighthawks" was late father's favorite painting.

Man, fuck this website. Opened on mobile and trying to admire the painting and I get 4 popups in a row obscuring it every few seconds. Fuck whoever designed that and doubly fuck whoever signed off on it. Absolutely abhorrent behaviour that is totally hostile and disrespectful to both the user and to the material being presented.

Just FYI - Firefox mobile cuts this down to one “dismiss without supporting” coverup.

I had to go check with another browser to confirm the nasty behavior you described. Which does happen.

Thanks: I should give it a go. Safari runs really well on iOS but the lack of an adblocker is a real pain. Firefox + ublock origin has been my goto on desktop since before Chrome deprecated Manifest V2 support, so I probably should at least try it on mobile.

If you disrespected them by default-disabling js, your browsing experience would improve at the expense of their metrics.

The guy on the left is looking at his phone.

If you like Edward Hopper's paintings and the atmosphere they evoke, try to watch the 2003 anime series "Texhnolyze" until its last arc. (I can't say any more without spoiling.)

Shite Hawks: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2026/nov/0...

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