Loneliness: Edward Hopper and street photography

March 1, 2019

Loneliness: Edward Hopper and street photography – Many people feel lonely even in a chaotic city, in the streets and bar among other people. It is really possible to feel alone even when we are surrounded by other people? Often people are lone with their problems and thoughts, sometimes sitting in a bar, sometimes walking on a street, sometimes in a church, sometimes in an hospital, sometimes at home…

“If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in bad company.”
(Jean-Paul Sartre)

What about loneliness in art? Edward Hopper has represented urban loneliness in his wonderful paintings, but also some famous street photographers have captured loneliness in their shots.

In that post i’ll do a parallelism between solitude in Hopper’s paintings and in street photography. Why E. Hopper? Because his paintings about urban loneliness are wonderful and his style as painter is near to street photography. Hopper is like a street photographer with a brush instead of a camera.

Loneliness: Edward Hopper and street photography

Edward Hopper has painted lone individuals in gas stations, diners, hotels, private houses… Other great themes in his paintings are the reletionship between man and nature and the sexual provocation…

Looking at his masterpiece Nighthawks (1942) we can appreciate the cinematic composition, the contrast between lights and shadows. We can hear the silence of the scene, we can feel the loneliness. There are four people in an all-night diner, no one is talking or looking at others. These individuals are lone with their thoughts, they are distant to each other. Loneliness is the real subject of this painting.

Edward Hopper

“Why do people have to be this lonely? What’s the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?” (Haruki Murakami)

Hopper has represented “modern solitude” also in other works. When more persons are painted togheter in the same place there is no communication between them.

Lack of communication, two people alone in the same room…

street photogaphy hopper — Edward Hopper

What about loneliness in street photography?

Well, as i said before loneliness is also a central theme in street photography. I’ve posted here some wonderful photos taken by famous street photographers in different years and places. In these shots there is a different loneliness from Hopper’s canvas; probably there is more drama than melancholy.

We have to say that people alone in a picture may not be alone in everyday life; sometimes photography is a mystification of reality. While Hopper really wanted to paint persons in solitude.

Let’s start with two shots taken by the father of street photography Henry Cartier Bresson. The first one is more surreal…

…while the second one is more classic.

Let’s see two color shots more similar to Hopper’s painting. This is the great Harry Gruyaert.

Alone man in a Vivian Maier’s color photo. Wonderful contrast between colored balloons and his dead eyes. We don’t know if he was an happy man in everyday life, but in this shot certainly he looks lonely and sad. Mystification of reality? Looking at his hearing aid we can imagine his isolation from the world.

In these two photos taken by Saul Leiter there is loneliness but also drama and sadness. Anyway this is what i feel looking at this wonderful pcitures.