hopper

Friday night the rain started, not ending till midday Saturday. Partner and I took the opportunity to visit the Indianapolis Museum of Art's newly opened buildings.

I was particularly happy to see once again Edward Hopper's 1943 painting, Hotel Lobby. The link doesn't do the colors of the painting justice. The whole painting floats in hues of aqua and turquoise. If there is a silence in all representational art -- we cannot hear what we are seeing -- Hopper paints that silence into his works. Happy enough to paint buildings or landscape as to paint people, he isolated each object and person, putting it all into a scene without words.

Before I moved here, I never thought I'd see this painting, one of my favorites of his paintings, because I didn't think I'd ever have a reason to be in Indianapolis. Now I live a mile or so from the museum. Who knew?

I can't say that I am bowled over by the new additions to the IMA, but it is nice to see the American galleries spread out more. And wisely, they chose a similar blue for the American scene gallery walls (where Hotel Lobby is located), making this painting particularly enchanting.