The painting in question is an oil painting by the American artist Edward Hopper. It was created in 1939 and measures 76.2 x 101.6 cm. Today, it is housed in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
At first glance, you see a quiet, everyday scene. On the right-hand side stands a woman, next to her on the stairs is a man. In front of them, in the center of the painting, a dog can be seen on a yellow lawn, looking to the left. On the left-hand side is a bluish, almost gloomy forest. The forest has a symmetrical split that contrasts in color with the white house.
Only a section of the house is visible, extending from the upper center to the upper right corner. There is a door between two windows, and above it is another recess. The house is generally depicted with rectangular edges and geometric shapes, with the exception of the architecturally decorated facade with a bay window and the door, which is decorated with Art Nouveau motifs. The windows are very simple, with reddish frames and hanging white curtains. On the ground floor, the house is painted with a reddish band, and the only elements that are not red are the door and the stairs below it.
The woman leaning back on the landing has lighter skin and blonde hair. She is wearing a blue dress and appears to be upset, as she is depicted with her arms crossed. She is looking at the dog, while the man is sitting next to her on the stairs. He is also fair skinned, has blonde hair, and is wearing a white T-shirt with brown pants. His posture is restricted and his gaze seems to be directed at the ground. With his right hand, he appears to be throwing something like a stone or grabbing the grass.
The dog lies in the lower center of the panel on a lighter, yellow meadow. It is red all over, but also white on its chest, belly, snout, and the tip of its tail. Its raised ears and gaze directed to the left draw attention to something that appears to be threatening. Its fur blends in with the grass of the meadow, which appears lively thanks to the application of color. The meadow extends across the lower part of the wall and fades into the trees on the left-hand side in the middle of the painting. The deeper you go into the depiction of the forest, the greener and darker it becomes.
The entire painting was executed using unsaturated and cooler colors. The red shapes of color catch the eye, even though they do not appear vivid. The yellow meadow is painted very pale, with certain areas blending with light blue and reddish tones. The cool white tone of the house, whose shadows show a kind of greenish blue, plays with the darker blue and green tones of the tree leaves. On the far left, the forest is as dark as black, which contrasts sharply with the white house.
Writer’s Comment
Edward Hopper is known to be the artist who painted the lonesome atmosphere of a fully industrialized US-America. Little do people know about his landscape and still-life paintings, that transmit the same calming and lonely feeling, even though people are not depicted in the works. To my favorite of the kind counts Rooms by the Sea (1951), where a piece of a room is uncomfortably depicted, and House at Dusk (1935), that reminds me a lot of The Empire of Light (1950) by the belgian surrealist René Magritte.
In the descripted work Cape Cod Evening, we see a juction of the vanishing feeling in his landscapes with the protagonism of what seems to be a troubled relationship and a dog. Not only painted Hopper lonely people, but also his frustrating marriage with Josephine Hopper, to whom he stayed married to his death. I personally think this painting is another one of those on which he represents his discontent and resent.
The atmosphere in the painting is undoubtly uncomfortable. As usual, Hopper shows parts of important elements – the cut view of a house, or the cut view of a building – and centers unlikely elements or even emptyness. This unbalanced structure of representation is reeinforced with the pale and unsatured palette, where although things are clear to see, it’s the shadows that grabs our attention. Clear to see is also the facial and bodily expression of the figures, depicting some kind of anger and sadness. And the dogs, with its glance to the corners of the paint, that drags us out of it, is almost a polite invitation to leave the scene and not be a part of it. To me, this is a very well executed product of dissatisfaction.
(Original text written in German)
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