Office at Night (Office at Night) - Edward Hopper

Office at Night (Office at Night) - Edward Hopper
Walker Art Center Minneapolis Estados Unidos
OST - 56x63 - 1940

Office at Night (pt: "Escritório de Noite") é uma pintura de 1940 do pintor realista Edward Hopper. É atualmente propriedade do Walker Art Center em Minneapolis (Minnesota), que comprou a pintura em 1948. O estilo é uma reminiscência de muitos trabalhos de Hopper, em que retrata a solidão de uma forma crua e distintiva.

Retrata um homem sentado numa mesa lendo um documento num escritório de noite. Acompanhado por uma mulher num vestido azul, possivelmente uma secretária, situando-se junto a um armário de arquivo aberto. Uma folha de papel caiu no chão entre os dois indivíduos. Há uma interpretação sexual do relacionamento entre os dois indivíduos.

Josephine Hopper serviu de modelo para a mulher. Vários títulos foram propostos para a pintura, como o Room 1005 ou Confidentially Yours, antes de Edward Hopper escolher "Office at Night".

Numa carta para o Walker Art Center, Hopper disse que o trabalho era "provavelmente o primeiro sugerido por muitos dos passeios no eléctrico "L", em Nova York depois de vislumbres escuro dos interiores dos escritórios, que deixaram impressões frescas e vivas na minha mente".

Edward Hopper passou por um bloqueio criativo, que durou alguns dias entre o final de dezembro do ano de 1939 e o início de janeiro do próximo ano. De acordo com as anotações mantidas no diário de sua esposa Josephine, durante esse tempo ele se ocupou lendo um livro do poeta e ensaísta francês Paul Valéry. No dia 25 de janeiro de 1940, Edward atendeu ao pedido de Josephine e o casal visitou a uma exposição italiana no Museu de Arte Moderna, em Nova Iorque. Ainda de acordo com os registros do diário de Josephine, O Nascimento de Vênus, obra do pintor italiano Sandro Botticelli, foi o que mais chamou a atenção do casal. Josephine já havia visto a pintura quando a mesmo se encontrava em Uffizzi, uma galeria de arte na Itália, enquanto Edward havia visto somente fotografias.

Na noite seguinte, de acordo com seu biógrafo Gail Levin, Edward declarou que precisava sair para "meditar" uma nova pintura. Sua jornada pela cidade parece ter incluído uma viagem de trem. Um dia depois, em 27 de janeiro, ele realizou uma nova viagem, desta vez para comprar uma tela, o que indicava que seu bloqueio podia ter passado e ele estava pronto para iniciar sua nova pintura. Na data, o diário de sua esposa registra que "ele tem um desenho preto e branco de um homem em uma mesa em um escritório e uma garota para o lado esquerdo do quarto e um efeito de iluminação.”

Hopper desenhou vários esboços enquanto tentava ajustar a imagem no papel para se adequar mais à sua visão. Josephine serviu como modelo para a figura feminina. Registros do dia primeiro de fevereiro no diário de Josephine indicam que a pintura se tratava de "um escritório de negócios com homem mais velho em sua mesa e uma secretária, uma mulher mexendo em um armário de arquivo". Edward trabalhava na pintura até tarde todos os dias. Em 19 de fevereiro, a tela havia evoluído a tal ponto que Josephine observou: "A cada dia eu entendo menos como E. pode adicionar outro toque" - mas também que suas mudanças estavam fazendo "essa imagem ... mais palpável - não exigente ... reduzido ao essencial ... tão realizado.”

A pintura acabada foi levada a uma galeria em 22 de fevereiro.

Several clues provide context. The high angle from which the viewer looks down on the office implies that the viewer may be looking in from a passing elevated train. Indeed, Hopper later informed Norman A. Geske, the curator of the Walker Art Center which acquired the painting in 1948, that the idea for the painting was "probably first suggested by many rides on the 'L' train in New York City after dark glimpses of office interiors that were so fleeting as to leave fresh and vivid impressions on my mind." So this is not a prestige office—a fact that is reinforced by the awkward lozenge shape of the room and by the small size of the man’s desk. A yet smaller desk, holding a typewriter, may belong to the woman. This implies that she may be his secretary.

Still, this is a corner office which indicates that within their small organization this is the most prestigious available space and therefore that the man is, perhaps, the manager or boss.

As in many of his other paintings, Hopper shows movement by means of a wind-blown curtain. In this painting, the ring at the bottom of the drawstring on the blind is swinging outward after the blind has been blown in by a gust of wind—possibly in response to a cross-breeze caused by the passing train.

The gust explains two other things. First, there is a sheet of paper on the floor beside the desk which must have just blown there from the desk as it has caught the woman’s eye. Second, the wind has blown the dress tightly around her legs, revealing her voluptuous figure to the strangers on the train—but not to the man who stares intently at another document.

There is a sexual interpretation of the relationship between the two individuals. Here, as in a number of Hopper’s works, such as Evening Wind (1921) and Summertime (1943), the stirring of curtains or blinds seems to symbolize emotional or physical stirrings. By contrast, listless curtains in other Hopper paintings like Eleven A.M. (1926) and Hotel by a Railroad (1952) seem to imply emotional stagnation or an inability to connect.[citation needed]

One critic writes, "Although the room is brightly lit, we sense that something strange is going on. Apart from the relationship between the two figures, the suspenseful mood arises from the circumstance that they are apparently poring over confidential material at this late hour, looking for a certain document that has yet to turn up." The man's intense concentration suggests that the matter is critical to him—he has not bothered to take off his jacket despite the fact that it is warm enough for all the windows to be open, and he seems not to have noticed the wind which has caused a document to fall to the floor.

Another critic observes, "In this painting Hopper offers more clues to a narrative than he ordinarily does. To the left of the desk is a piece of paper the woman has just seen. One assumes that when this voluptuous female reaches for the paper, her action will arouse the man. On the back wall Hopper has painted a section of artificial light, which in turn dramatizes the point where the man and woman will interact with each other." This is certainly one possibility, but another option is to interpret this painting as being one of a series about lost opportunities. Perhaps the woman will bend down and, like the nightgown-clad woman seen bending over in Night Windows (1928), reveal her desirability to voyeuristic strangers on the elevated railroad, still unobserved and unappreciated by her male companion.

Early proposed titles for the painting included Room 1005 and Confidentially Yours, reinforcing the idea that there is a deeper connection between the man and the woman, or that they are working jointly on a matter that involves a high degree of trust between them. In the end, Hopper settled for the more ambiguous title, Office at Night.

As in other nighttime scenes, Hopper had to realistically recreate the complexity of a room lit by multiple, overlapping sources of varying brightness. In this painting as in Nighthawks, his mastery of this problem is a key to his success. In Office at Night, the light comes from three sources: an overhead light, the lamp on the man's desk, which sheds a small puddle of intense light, and from a street-light shining in the open window on the right-hand side. Hopper reported that the overlap of the light from the ceiling fixture and the light from the exterior created particular technical difficulties, since they required him to use different shades of white to convey the idea of degrees of shadow. A careful examination of the corner behind the woman reveals the faint shadow that she casts in the weak light of the ceiling fixture, almost lost by the sharply-etched shadow of the filing cabinet in the brighter light of the street lamp.

The painting remained in Hopper's ownership for several years. According to Jo's journal notes, it was displayed in 1945 at the Salmagundi Club's 75th anniversary exhibition, to which Edward had been invited as a guest exhibitor. At the exhibition, the painting won a $1,000 prize.

The journal contains a scratched-out note stating that the painting was sold in spring 1948 to the Butler Art Institute in Youngstown, Ohio for "1,500 -1/3", paid on July 27, 1949. Another note, immediately below, contradicts this, stating that the painting was sold to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis for the same amount, on June 27, 1949.

A final journal note, also in Jo's hand, states "John Clancy cited value for insurance 15,000—1964."