a sense of place

     

These are both paintings by Edward Hopper, a master of setting a mood and creating a sense of place where you can not only see the figures but even the air that the room holds is given a value... a texture... a feeling.  These paintings both hold one figure in a room, but although they are made with very similar styles the feeling conveyed is completely different.

The woman on the bed sits looking out the window, breathing in the fresh morning air as the sun streams into her room and warms the surface of her bed and her cheeks on her epraiser face.

The girl at the table seems chilled sitting in a room with a miniscule raidiator that does not seem to be warming the room at all, she grasps her tea cup for warmth and looks down at it pondering the heat that it holds.  She is bundled up in her heavy jacket and although she seems to have found comfort in her seat as she huddled up around warm things the chilly, dim room overpowers the small offset of warmth that she presents.  

-body language of the woman... one open to the presumably warm air around her 

and the other a bit more closed off and small, her white skin given goose bumps by the cold air of the room

-color... the light of the painting on the left is yellow and warms the room

while in the painting of the cafe the light is artificial (it is night and lamps light the room) but is does not shine yellow or orange it is white light like that of a winter day when the air is cold.

-the imagination could carry... the woman on her bed hears the sounds of morning, the streets awakening and the occasional chirp of birds. A much brighter atmosphere than that of the that of the cafe that would be somewhat quite, cold with quiet chatter of other customers and the clinking of tea and coffee cups.