Product Description Edward Hopper (1882-1967) is considered the first significant American painter in 20th-century art. After decades of patient work, Hopper enjoyed a success and popularity that since the 1950s has continually grown. In canvas after canvas he painted the loneliness of big-city people. Many of Hopper's pictures represent views of streets and roads, rooftops, and abandoned houses, depicted in a brilliant light that strangely belies the melancholy mood of the scenes. Hopper's paintings are marked by striking juxtapositions of colour, and by the clear contours with which the figures are demarcated from their surroundings. His extremely precise focus on the theme of modern men and women in the natural and man-made environment sometimes lends his pictures a mood of eerie disquiet. On the other hand, Hopper's renderings of rocky landscapes in warm brown hues, or his depictions of the seacoast, exude an unusual tranquillity that reveals another, more optimistic side of his character.
Customer Reviews: A fine summation of an American icon.October 12, 2008 Tom Furgas(Youngstown, OH United States) While Edward Hopper was an American scene painter, and his work very much a product of it's time, there is something about his choice of subjects, coupled with his very particular point of view, that transcends much of the realism that predated the advent of Abstract Expressionism. Hopper explored the singular melancholy of the American psyche unlike any other painter of his day (or before, or since.) This superb book, one of Taschen's Basic Art series, sums up Hopper's achievement with a concise overview of his work. The text is a first-rate biography and critique rolled into one. The reproductions of the work are clear and beautifully reproduced. If you would like one volume on the work of Hopper this one can't be beat, especially for the very modest price.
If it's all you can findOctober 23, 2003 12 out of 13 found this review helpful
This work is of medium value. The collection of reproductions is good, both in terms of the amount of them, as well as their quality. Certainly it's nothing overly-impressive, but it is a fine collection.
The problem lies more in the commentary. Renner spends a great deal of time on "re-codings" in Hooper's work, leading to many...interesting conclusions. As one reads along, one gets the impression that Hooper himself didn't have a great deal to say (espeically compared to artists, like Dali, who can't shut up), so Renner instead fills the space with what lamentably passes for art criticism these days (mostly of the postmodern and psychologizing variety). I wasn't terribly impressed.
Everything considered, you would be better served by another Hooper book from Taschen, this one written by Ivo Kranzfelder. Kranzfelder takes much greater care to deal with the little amount Hopper said, and (while the current style does occur to an extent) the commentary tends to be much more lucid as regards Hopper's works. Additionally, that volume has a much larger and better variety of Hopper's works than Renner's.
That being said, if one cannot get a hold on Kranzfelder's book, or does not want to spend the extra money for it, Renner's work is acceptable. The commentary isn't swell, but it is still passable.
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