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3 Paintings that Search for Meaning in Moments of Solitude
Art that encourages us to embrace uncertainty
A woman sits alone on the edge of a hotel bed. Her luggage is left unpacked whilst her shoes have been kicked to one side. She has undressed for sleep but for now is awake, contemplating what tomorrow will bring.
Ostensibly, she is reading what is thought to be a train timetable, but her attention is distracted. Her stooped posture and the way the timetable has slipped down her knees, falling from her field of vision, suggests that whatever journey she intends to make, her heart remains divided.
Looked at in this way, this large painting — measuring over a metre and a half in both directions — makes an odd sort of pronouncement: that this person’s life is compromised.
The image is constructed to reinforce the point: see for instance how every element of the hotel room has been abbreviated to a block of anonymous colour. There is no decoration; the room is sparse yet cramped, made up of sharp lines lit by artificial lighting. Against this synthetic brightness, the woman’s face is in shadow, cocooned in that airless room.
What I find interesting — and appealing — about Edward Hopper’s Hotel Room is that, whatever story is being told, it honours the complex union of…
