Archive for the Art Category

Edward Hopper:  The Mirror For Our Age (January 22, 2024)

Posted in Art, Society on January 22, 2024 by e-commentary.org

. . .

J          “Edward Hopper.  Top of the list.  He captures and distills the disconnection and alienation of the nation . . . in his time . . . and in our time . . . in a subtle haunting and disturbing way.”

. . .

K          “Everyone knows.  Something is wrong.  Something is amiss.  Something is fetid and festering.  Yet everyone knows they do not know everything.  Everyone knows they may not know specifically, but they do know that they know generally.  That certain uncertainty is toxic and crippling and debilitating and alienating.”

J          “If you pay attention, you really can see it and hear it and feel it and smell it . . . and even taste it.”

. . .

J          “Photoshop a Fondle Slab into every other paw.  Etch a tattoo or two on their torso, too.  Turn the top hats into backwards baseball caps.  Modify the visages from resigned acceptance to coiled and undigested anger.”

K          “He captures the loneliness and emptiness and the milieu with a quiet dignity.”

. . .

J          “Even if not a thing is changed, his work captures his age and our age . . . and our restrained outrage.”  

. . .

[See the recent e-commentary at On Friendship Today:  Flat, Fried, Frayed, Frazzled, Frozen, Fractured, Fissured, Fatigued, Finished?  Oh, And Happy Thanksgiving! (November 20, 2023) and The Other Sabot To Drop (April 18, 2022) and some vintage observations at The Residue of Unrelenting Fear: PTSD Afflicts The Populace (August 28, 2006) and Depleted Uranium Disease (DUD) (March 30, 2009); see the January e-commentary on the Fondle Slab at “Monitoring The Masses:  The Card And The Chip (January 12, 2015)” Revisited:  The “Fondle Slab” Enslaves Us All (January 28, 2019).]

Bumper sticker of the week:

When all this social distance stuff is over, I still want people to stay away from me.