ABSTRACT
Edward Hopper's paintings are uniquely silent, conveying a sense of unnatural stillness. The silence is more active than passive, mainly because it suggests little of the calmness, tranquility, or placidity commonly associated with it. Frequently in Hopper's works the attitude toward buildings or other inanimate structures is much the same as the attitude toward people. He paints and preserves captured moments, but the time of day or night in which the moments occur strengthens our sense of a "before" or "after." It is impossible to judge why Hopper likes to place something bright red in pictures otherwise somber, dull, or prosaic. The prominence of windows in Hopper's works contributes most to their atmosphere of mystery and potentiality, for his emphasized windows almost always carry the dramatic current of his paintings. Hopper's terror consists of the fragile, the transient, the coherent, and the familiar being threatened by their opposites.
