Art Critique

Paper Summary:

This paper, divided into three parts, presents a formal analysis of two paintings and then compares them to one another. The first painting discussed is Honore Daumier's "Third Class Carriage" (1862) which depicts a train carriage full of peasants. The second part examines Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks" of 1942, which is set in a largely deserted city district, where three individuals sit around a rounded, open table in the middle of a diner. The third part of the paper compares the two works. The paper shows that both works, despite their common subject matters and techniques, must be viewed as parts of different traditions. Daumier's work stems from the European reaction to Romanticism, while Hopper's work stems from the American evolution and adaptation of European techniques to create a new, more eviscerating social critique of the life of the common man in America.

From the Paper:

"Both pieces depict observed images of the lives of ordinary people, conducting ordinary acts of life such as traveling or eating. Both pieces depict individuals in public rather than private spaces. Both pieces depict individuals in transition, in one case on a train in transit, in the other case, waiting to leave a coffee shop with someone, or for a meeting elsewhere, or (in the case of the waiter) just waiting for the night to pass him by. Both works demonstrate how by simply portraying ordinary aspects of life, those acts accrue a significance in the mind of the viewer."

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