From Williamsburg Bridge 1928

Edward Hopper’s ‘From Williamsburg Bridge’ is a world of red brick and clouded skies rendered in oil on canvas. Looking at this painting, I can’t help but think about what it must have been like for Hopper to perch on that bridge, with the wind whipping around him, trying to capture the essence of those buildings. He’s really working with a limited palette, a few muted colors, but somehow he coaxes so much depth and light out of them. The brushstrokes here are so deliberate, so economical. Take that single cloud in the sky. It feels like he mixed that gray-blue just so and laid it down with a kind of knowing certainty. I feel like he’s saying, “This is it, this is how it feels to be here, now.” Hopper reminds us that even the most ordinary scenes can hold extraordinary beauty and meaning. Artists never work in isolation, each one borrows and transforms the ideas of those who came before. And in turn, inspires those yet to come.