New York - New Haven and Hartford by Edward Hopper

The confrontation between the modernity of transport infrastructures and the solitude of rural American landscapes characterizes this major landscape work. In the superb creation entitled “New York - New Haven and Hartford”, the renowned artist Edward Hopper places his subjects in the heart of a wild hill bordered by the railroad. The painting materializes a search for rigorous linear balance, combining the stable geometry of isolated dwellings with the repetitive horizontal lines of the foreground railroad track.

A long line of dark steel rails and regular ties horizontally crosses the entire lower width of the pictorial composition. Above, a grassy embankment rises gently, crowned by a white house with a sloping red roof flanked by two chimney flues. To its left, a gray agricultural building or blind barn stands in an isolated manner at the top of the slope yellowed by the sun. Several trees with dense green foliage and sinuous trunks dot the slopes of the hill, casting large dark shadows on the ground. The background reveals a sky of a softened milky clarity under a late afternoon light that flattens the relief.

The craftsman’s artisanal expertise resplends in the vibrant texture of the wild vegetation and the strikingly realistic rendering of light. His rigorous oil technique confers a perfect matte finish upon the wooden walls of the dwellings and a modern flatness to the different planes of the hill. This meticulous execution demonstrates an accomplished pictorial technique.