Edward Hopper — Nighthawks

It is late at night. Four people are visible through the glass of a corner diner. Outside is dark; inside is bright. Yet the brightness is not warm.

No entrance is visible. The diner appears to be a place one can neither enter nor leave. The glass is a window onto the world and at the same time a wall that blocks sound. The figures sit close together, yet no one reaches another. To be together and still alone: this is Hopper’s urban solitude.

Byun Shi-Ji’s solitude is different. Hopper’s figures become isolated because human relations have thinned or broken. Byun’s old man becomes solitary because he stands small before an immense natural world. Hopper’s solitude is cold, built from neon, glass, and straight lines. Byun’s is dry, shaped by wind, stone walls, and the color of withered grass.

One side is enclosed within an interior; the other stands in a field without limits. The solitude of enclosure and the solitude of encounter—neither is lighter than the other.

The woman in red looks down at her hand; the man beside her looks ahead. Hopper does not give us a story. He leaves a scene, and the viewer places a personal night within it.

The lights are on, and no one speaks.