When my wife and I started dating, I lived in a small "garden-level" apartment. It was crowded with books and CDs, and felt like home to me, but she hated it. She hated nothing more than the bare walls. "I can't believe you don't have any art," she said, emphasizing art. So we went to a store and I bought some prints, which she had framed. Along with some of her photographs, they now hang on the walls of our house. The largest is Hopper's Nighthawks and the second largest is van Gogh's Night Cafe.
Though it seems impossible, I don't remember being aware, on the evening I made these purchases, that the pictures are related in subject and theme. Both depict glaringly lit night cafes. There is no door to the outside visible in either one. The people look trapped and hunched over, so oppressive is the light. Van Gogh's, in particular, is redolent of death. The pool table is like a coffin about to be lowered into the shadowy grave. The faceless priest in white vestments stands to the side. It is not hard to guess what a Freudian would make of the arrangement, on the table, of cue stick and billiard balls.
The clock in van Gogh's picture shows the time--a few minutes past midnight. Judging by the deserted street and darkened windows, it might be later in Hopper's. If memory serves, I first saw Nighthawks on the cover of an American literature anthology I used in college, and the picture puts me in mind of Hemingway: "The Killers" and "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place." The latter begins, "It was late and every one had left the cafe except an old man who sat in the shadow the leaves of the trees made against the electric light." Here in one sentence are the essential elements of the picture: lateness, darkness, and artificial light. The story, very brief, ends when the old man, who has been drinking, walks from one night spot to another, less pleasant one. As he walks he recites the Lord's Prayer, substituting nada, the Spanish word for "nothing," for most of the nouns. He arrives at his destination "and stood before a bar with a shining steam pressure coffee machine." (Two of them in Hopper's picture.) Writing of this story John Berryman suggested that the lateness applies not only to the time of day but also to a tradition--the Christian tradition. Where does religion take you? A crummy night spot, with an unpolished bar and gleaming coffee machine. The picture is infused with the same cold despair.
I kind of wish these pictures did not appeal to me so much but, like film noir, they do.
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