Evening Wind

Edward Hopper's etching Evening Wind is infused with the energy of a cinematic frame. Recalling Degas's interior scenes, the viewer has caught a lone female in her personal space. This subject certainly has roots in Hopper’s interest in 19th-century French interior paintings by artists ranging from Manet and Degas to the more Modern works by Matisse. However, Hopper instilled angst and existential loneliness in his handling; a characteristic he denied consciously creating in his art when asked in interviews and letters. The interior has the quality of a theatrical set. Curtain fabric billows around the figure, and her arms brace against the wind. Hopper escalates the erotic nature of the encounter with flesh and sheets exposed. Adding to the sense of foreboding, the identity and expression of the principle figure is hidden. Hopper gives the viewer the sensation of a suspense film by presenting the viewer only with his subject's faceless body.
By drawing the gaze of the viewer out into the night sky, Evening Wind is an early example of the artist's characteristic use of suggested narrative outside the picture plane. In Hopper's etching, light is expressed through blank space in the composition, amplifying the emphasis on the anonymous expanse. Hopper's female is the bridge between the space stretching out in front of her and the cramped interior behind. The viewer realizes the window in Evening Wind echoes our own frame of reference, Hopper's print itself.