Someone who goes by the appellation “arsidubu” has finally answered the graphical question, “What do you get when you cross Norman Rockwell with Edward Hopper?”

Ta Da!

Certainly, the two artists share a comic book illustrator aesthetic in their depiction of the life in mid-20th-Century America, and both cast their paintings in similar venues; however, their denizens inhabit different planets – at least when it comes to mood and human interaction.

 

In Rockwell, a Protestant deity smiles upon a beloved middle class who in turn smile and wink their way from cradle to grave.  Even coal miners seem bemused by their lot in life.

Conversely, in Hopper’s world God is dead, and as poet Victor Enyutin has observed, the people’s shadows seem more alive than they do.

 

Here’s Enyutin’s take on the painting People in the Sun:

People depicted here by Hopper cannot just relax in the sun. Instead, they project to the situation of taking sun their rigidities and stresses, and their business oriented energies over-stimulated by science fiction – poetry of entrepreneurial world. In their solemnly frozen poses we feel their unconscious intention of taking trip… to the sun – we see that they are as though physically moving/traveling towards the sun while sitting in a kind of starship (may be, with a dream of starting a business there of getting some of the sun’s “natural resources”).

Both artists hailed from New York and enjoyed prosperous childhoods, though Edward Hopper grew up in a strict Baptist household, i.e., in a fallen world.  Both embarked upon their careers early, worked for magazines, employed their wives as models, and enjoyed public affirmation.

On the other hand – and given the mood of their paintings/illustrations, the following statement seems profoundly counterintuitive – Hopper’s biography seems the saner of the two.  Thrice married, Rockwell’s second wife spent time in a psychiatric hospital and Rockwell himself received psychiatric care from Eric Erikson, who once told Rockwell that “you paint your happiness but don’t live it.”

Though much more restless and slower to gain recognition than Rockwell, Hopper enjoyed 44 years of a happy marriage, despite possessing the temperament of a curmudgeon.

Given the sunshine and shadow of their paintings, guess which one of these artists voted for Roosevelt and which for Hoover.

That’s right.  It’s a trick question.  The lefty painted this clown:

And the righty painted this one:

Perhaps we have forgotten that traditionally conservatives like Swift, Pope, and Johnson have been the world-weary gloomsters and liberals the naive optimists.  Whatever the case, I feel much more at home in Edward Hopper’s world.