Studying Nighthawks

Nighthawks

by Edward Hopper, Edward Hopper is from America.

Made in 1942

Oil on canvas was used to make the work.

My first impression of this painting was that it was a very regular picture. When I say this I mean that it looks like just a regular day with dark colors and no bright colors. There is no one outside of the diner which shows loneliness and that there are only a few people alone in a big world.

Edward Hopper was trained to be an illustrator but spent five years studying painting which influenced his style to become about urban isolation. He made this painting to show a diner and three customers that are all in their own private thoughts. Without even knowing it Hopper actually painted the loneliness of a large city.

Edward Hopper shows asymmetry in his painting. There isn't any balance in this picture because there are more objects on the right side of the painting. The emphasis is on the four people. They are alone in the diner and it shows placement. They are in the center of the picture and you right away start to wander what each person is doing, thinking, and who they are. This placement emphasis helps you think and they are the first thing you see when looking at this picture. There also are leading lines in this picture. The leading lines take you up the street, down the sidewalk, into the diner and then down the table. I can tell these are leading lines because that was the path my eyes took me on when I first looked at the picture.

Finding images that are balanced

Symmetrical Balance

Approximately Symmetrical Balance

Radial Balance

Asymmetrical Balance

The Principles of Design

Principles of design: this set of rules that help artists from whatever they are working on

vocab

Balance: when the visual "weight" of an an artwork feels equally distributed

-symmetry

mirror image

-approximately symmetrical

almost mirror image feeling of symmetry

-asymmetry

opposite of symmetric yet still could be balanced

-radial balance

coming out from the middle (circular) infinite lines of symmetry

Emphasis:

rhythm and movement:

proportion:

unity: feeling that everything works together, if something was missing it would be incomplete

variety: having some differences in shapes, colors, forms, order, etc.

Emphasis

-When one element in an artwork appears to be more important or attract the most attention, we say it creates EMPHASIS.

Placement-Where Artists put stuff matters sometimes in the middle or not but always thinking about where it goes.

Contrast-something that is very different then what's around it could be color, shape,etc.

Grouping- When Artists decides to take a bunch of elements and put them right around the thing that they want to emphasize is grouping.

Rhythm and Movement -referring to how the artist guides the viewer through a work of art do it by:

-repetition

-same elements

-alternating elements-ex. color pattern

-progression-element is repeated but changing getting ex. getting smaller

-leading lines-Lines that help us travel through the painting.

-implied movement- Looks like it's moving by positioning of other parts of the picture or sculpture.

-optical movement-When you repeat some line or shape and there's an illusion it makes your eye feel like it's moving.

-actual movement- Where art actually moves

Proportion- In art we are talking about the size relationship of the parts to one another or to the whole.

Colors- Can put a lot of red in and emphasize it by contrast.

Shapes-

Forms-

We might use words like a lot, a little, many, few, big, small, similar, etc.