.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Edward Hopper’s Windy Day demonstrates the adept handling of watercolor and keen understanding of light for which the artist’s works on paper are best known. Depicting the White River in Vermont, the present work infuses a complex composition of a winding riverbank with a breath of fresh air and a cool blue palette to fully capture the brisk atmosphere of a New England fall. At the same time, the wind permeating the scene, the lack of life—not even a bird on the horizon—and the diminutive buildings, almost hiding in the shadows, suffuse the otherwise vibrant scene with an underlying disquiet that is distinctly Hopper. As embodied by Windy Day, Lloyd Goodrich writes, “For Hopper, watercolor has been a major medium, on a par with oil…Products of a fresh eye and a sure hand, they have a quality of utter authenticity, not only in subject-matter but in purity and freshness of visual sensation.” (Lloyd Goodrich, A Silent World: Portfolio of Eight Watercolors and Drawings by Edward Hopper, New York, 1966, n.p.)
Every summer, Edward and Jo Hopper would leave behind the urban environment of New York City to seek artistic inspiration in rural landscapes, most often in New England. The Hoppers first visited Vermont in 1927 on day trips while spending the summer in New Hampshire. They would not return until September 1935, when Hopper was desperate for a new environment after an unproductive summer in South Truro, Massachusetts. Captivated by the lush, untamed landscape and resplendent light of the area, they returned the three following years. In 1937 and 1938, the artists stayed for a full month of late summer on a farm owned by Bob and Irene Slater in South Royalton, located along the White River in the Green Mountains. According to Bonnie Tocher Clause, in total, Hopper painted no more than twenty-five watercolors, as well as a few drawings, during his seasons in Vermont. Clause explains, “The majority of Hopper’s Vermont watercolors and drawings are pure landscapes, or about as pure as Hopper ever got in painting outdoor scenes. These works focus exclusively on natural surroundings, the mountains, meadows, hillsides, woods, and watercourses in the vicinity of Vermont’s White River Valley. They are quiet paintings, inviting contemplation but not narrative.” (Edward Hopper in Vermont, Hanover, New Hampshire, 2012, p. 3)
One of the most captivating features of the Vermont landscape for Hopper was the winding bends, rippling water and lush banks of the White River, which he would depict in a series of seven watercolors from 1937-38: Gravel Bar, White River (1937, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York, Purchase, New York); White River at Royalton (1937, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York); White River at Sharon (1937, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.); First Branch of the White River (1938, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts); Rain on River (1938, Private Collection); Landscape with Tower (1938, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York); and the present work. Hopper would reflect in a letter of January 26, 1939, “These valleys of the branches of the White River and the White River valley itself are, to me, perhaps the finest in Vermont.” (as quoted in Edward Hopper in Vermont, p. 95)
The culmination of his artistic experience in Vermont, the White River watercolors feature a wide variety of different viewpoints, which Hopper selected while driving around the area between the towns of Royalton and Sharon. Windy Day is among the most complex of the series with its perspective allowing for views onto both near and distant mountains, as well as the houses directly beside the riverbanks. Several of the other watercolors take a more frontal viewpoint, with the White River parallel to the picture plane. As such, the present work is closest in composition to the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s White River at Sharon and approaches the panorama of the Museum of Fine Art’s elevated view, First Branch of the White River.
The series also captures the full range of weather conditions Hopper experienced in late summer in Vermont, from sunny, calm days to shady afternoons and rainstorms. As Clause asserts of the present work, “In Windy Day, Hopper has succeeded in painting the wind.” (Edward Hopper in Vermont, p. 113) The blowing gusts are evident in the swaying branches of the trees and curved blades of tall grass as well as the sky where grayer storm clouds seem to move rapidly into the scene. The key focal point, however, is clearly the rushing water of the river depicted in a kaleidoscopic arrangement of blue hues. A related drawing, Shallows of the White River (1938, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York), demonstrates that Hopper determinedly sought to accurately capture the movement of the windblown waters, focusing “on the ‘texture’ of the water as it swirls and flows around rocky outcrops and boulders…In the painting, Windy Day, the different depths and currents in the river are indicated by color. The areas left blank in the drawing are painted in a clear, smooth, light blue in the watercolor; the shaded areas of the drawing are translated in the watercolor to a darker blue, mottled to show the movement of the water, ruffled by the wind.” (Edward Hopper in Vermont, p. 110)
Throughout his career, Hopper was drawn to water as a major compositional element. The draw was three-fold. First, water can act as a natural barrier between the artist (and thus the viewer) and the subject, much as the rural roads and train tracks that also recur in his works. In Windy Day, the river acts to distance the viewer from the only sign of human life in the composition—the houses, forming a natural barrier symbolic of psychological distance. Second, water allowed Hopper to introduce an element of motion into an oeuvre that is largely defined and dominated by stillness. Here, both the moving water and the sense of wind act as a foil for the more solid pictorial elements, such as the weighty boulders and angular houses. Finally, in its constant motion and expanse beyond the confines of the canvas—in its elemental presence—the inclusion of water alludes to the more existential themes that dominate Hopper's art.
Indeed, “Hopper’s fascination with the [White River] was probably both a reflection of its beauty and picturesque qualities and a manifestation of his lifelong love of the water.” (Edward Hopper in Vermont, p. 105) This transcendent series, as epitomized by Windy Day, manifests the freedom and luminosity of Hopper's finest watercolors and is superlative of the large body of career-defining work the artist produced during his summers in New England. Central to his ouevre, "New England provided Hopper with motifs which he would turn into icons of American art...New England led Hopper into the realms of light and shadow. Under the spell of the region's translucent and tonic air, he painted away to his heart's desire. His very soul, it would seem, fell in sync with the poetry and spirit of the place. If indelibly American in his art, Hopper was also thoroughly New England." (C. Little, Edward Hopper's New England, San Francisco, California, 1993, p. VI)
Every summer, Edward and Jo Hopper would leave behind the urban environment of New York City to seek artistic inspiration in rural landscapes, most often in New England. The Hoppers first visited Vermont in 1927 on day trips while spending the summer in New Hampshire. They would not return until September 1935, when Hopper was desperate for a new environment after an unproductive summer in South Truro, Massachusetts. Captivated by the lush, untamed landscape and resplendent light of the area, they returned the three following years. In 1937 and 1938, the artists stayed for a full month of late summer on a farm owned by Bob and Irene Slater in South Royalton, located along the White River in the Green Mountains. According to Bonnie Tocher Clause, in total, Hopper painted no more than twenty-five watercolors, as well as a few drawings, during his seasons in Vermont. Clause explains, “The majority of Hopper’s Vermont watercolors and drawings are pure landscapes, or about as pure as Hopper ever got in painting outdoor scenes. These works focus exclusively on natural surroundings, the mountains, meadows, hillsides, woods, and watercourses in the vicinity of Vermont’s White River Valley. They are quiet paintings, inviting contemplation but not narrative.” (Edward Hopper in Vermont, Hanover, New Hampshire, 2012, p. 3)
One of the most captivating features of the Vermont landscape for Hopper was the winding bends, rippling water and lush banks of the White River, which he would depict in a series of seven watercolors from 1937-38: Gravel Bar, White River (1937, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York, Purchase, New York); White River at Royalton (1937, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York); White River at Sharon (1937, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.); First Branch of the White River (1938, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts); Rain on River (1938, Private Collection); Landscape with Tower (1938, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York); and the present work. Hopper would reflect in a letter of January 26, 1939, “These valleys of the branches of the White River and the White River valley itself are, to me, perhaps the finest in Vermont.” (as quoted in Edward Hopper in Vermont, p. 95)
The culmination of his artistic experience in Vermont, the White River watercolors feature a wide variety of different viewpoints, which Hopper selected while driving around the area between the towns of Royalton and Sharon. Windy Day is among the most complex of the series with its perspective allowing for views onto both near and distant mountains, as well as the houses directly beside the riverbanks. Several of the other watercolors take a more frontal viewpoint, with the White River parallel to the picture plane. As such, the present work is closest in composition to the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s White River at Sharon and approaches the panorama of the Museum of Fine Art’s elevated view, First Branch of the White River.
The series also captures the full range of weather conditions Hopper experienced in late summer in Vermont, from sunny, calm days to shady afternoons and rainstorms. As Clause asserts of the present work, “In Windy Day, Hopper has succeeded in painting the wind.” (Edward Hopper in Vermont, p. 113) The blowing gusts are evident in the swaying branches of the trees and curved blades of tall grass as well as the sky where grayer storm clouds seem to move rapidly into the scene. The key focal point, however, is clearly the rushing water of the river depicted in a kaleidoscopic arrangement of blue hues. A related drawing, Shallows of the White River (1938, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York), demonstrates that Hopper determinedly sought to accurately capture the movement of the windblown waters, focusing “on the ‘texture’ of the water as it swirls and flows around rocky outcrops and boulders…In the painting, Windy Day, the different depths and currents in the river are indicated by color. The areas left blank in the drawing are painted in a clear, smooth, light blue in the watercolor; the shaded areas of the drawing are translated in the watercolor to a darker blue, mottled to show the movement of the water, ruffled by the wind.” (Edward Hopper in Vermont, p. 110)
Throughout his career, Hopper was drawn to water as a major compositional element. The draw was three-fold. First, water can act as a natural barrier between the artist (and thus the viewer) and the subject, much as the rural roads and train tracks that also recur in his works. In Windy Day, the river acts to distance the viewer from the only sign of human life in the composition—the houses, forming a natural barrier symbolic of psychological distance. Second, water allowed Hopper to introduce an element of motion into an oeuvre that is largely defined and dominated by stillness. Here, both the moving water and the sense of wind act as a foil for the more solid pictorial elements, such as the weighty boulders and angular houses. Finally, in its constant motion and expanse beyond the confines of the canvas—in its elemental presence—the inclusion of water alludes to the more existential themes that dominate Hopper's art.
Indeed, “Hopper’s fascination with the [White River] was probably both a reflection of its beauty and picturesque qualities and a manifestation of his lifelong love of the water.” (Edward Hopper in Vermont, p. 105) This transcendent series, as epitomized by Windy Day, manifests the freedom and luminosity of Hopper's finest watercolors and is superlative of the large body of career-defining work the artist produced during his summers in New England. Central to his ouevre, "New England provided Hopper with motifs which he would turn into icons of American art...New England led Hopper into the realms of light and shadow. Under the spell of the region's translucent and tonic air, he painted away to his heart's desire. His very soul, it would seem, fell in sync with the poetry and spirit of the place. If indelibly American in his art, Hopper was also thoroughly New England." (C. Little, Edward Hopper's New England, San Francisco, California, 1993, p. VI)