Cape Cod Morning 1950

Edward Hopper made this painting, ‘Cape Cod Morning’, with oil on canvas. Imagine him, standing at his easel, maybe squinting a little in the morning light, trying to capture that particular feeling of early morning quiet. The light feels like it's being stretched across the scene, doesn’t it? Like taffy. Hopper’s a master of light, of course, but it’s also about the weight of the paint, thick in some places, thin in others, that makes the light feel so real, so touchable. I bet he was thinking about Vermeer and his own take on the American scene when he was making this. That woman, leaning out the window – what’s she thinking? Hopper doesn’t tell us, does he? He leaves space for us to wonder, to project. Painters have always looked at painters, and in this, we see Hopper in conversation with the Old Masters, responding to their ideas about light and form.