Detail of Cape Cod Evening by Hopper in the National Gallery, September 2009

Edward Hopper (artist)
American, 1882 - 1967
Cape Cod Evening, 1939
oil on canvas
overall: 76.2 x 101.6 cm (30 x 40 in.) framed: 106.7 x 132.1 cm (42 x 52 in.)
John Hay Whitney Collection
1982.76.6
On View


"My aim in painting," explained Edward Hopper, "has always been the most exact transcription possible of my most intimate impressions of nature." Claiming the figures in Cape Cod Evening were done almost entirely without models, and the dry, blowing grass could be seen from his studio window in the late summer or autumn, Hopper continued: "In the woman I attempted to get the broad, strong-jawed face and blond hair of a Finnish type of which there are many on the Cape. The man is a dark-haired Yankee. The dog is listening to something, probably a whippoorwill or some evening sound."

Despite his matter-of-fact account, Hopper also has endowed this ostensibly straightforward work with a strong, albeit ambiguous, emotional undercurrent. The sense of eerie calm is due, in part, to the serene effect of the golden twilight sun that illuminates the grass in front of the Victorian house, but fails to penetrate the dense forest beyond. The middle-aged rural couple seem to lack any emotional rapport; they project a mood of self-absorption, futility, and alienation that typifies much of Hopper's figurative work.

Text from: www.nga.gov/fcgi-bin/tinfo_f?object=61252