Across time periods and cultures, common technical elements continue to show up in art pertaining to the theme of loneliness. Picasso’s “The Old Guitarist” expresses an alternative consciousness in a presumably busy place, Dali’s “Loneliness” depicts retreat into the self in an open background, while Hopper’s “Nighthawks” depicts a more modern loneliness, feeling isolated even within the city and multiple strangers around you. In each work, the figures turn away from the audience, indicating that they have accepted their position of loneliness, retreating into the self instead of continuing a search for companionship. This suggests loneliness is internal and perhaps that we perpetuate it in attempt to cope. Despite different backgrounds and cultures among the artists, the paintings share many similar technical elements, including the composition and color schemes. Through a stylistic analysis, urban environmental analysis, and textual analysis, we can compare the universal similarities in perceptions of loneliness.
Each painting has a focus figure that we perceive loneliness in, and they all share the commonality of averting their eyes (from the viewer), each in a slightly different manner. In Picasso’s “The Old Guitarist”, the old man’s head is tilted down with his eyes closed as he appears to dissociate from what’s happening around him and retreats into himself. Dali’s figure turns their back entirely with one arm raised to find comfort in leaning against the boulder. This is also the only figure of the three paintings that is nude, giving an additional level for interpretation around the vulnerability of loneliness. Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks” contains multiple figures, making his conceptualization of loneliness unique from the other two by focusing it on loneliness around other people in an urban environment. Due to hieratic composition, our eyes are drawn to the figure in the center, whose head is tilted down toward his beverage, shoulders hunched, back to the viewer. He is the only figure whose face we cannot see, although we can infer his emotion and expression from his body language. The faces we can see of the other characters match the atmosphere, tired with no smiles. Although the two other customers appear to be together, they don’t seem to be interacting, as the woman looks at her hand as if bored or impatient and the man’s position is tense.
Expanding on the physical position and location of figures in the images, each painting’s composition is unique as they reflect loneliness in unique ways. The Old Guitarist fills the entire portrait, leaving very little negative space. This emphasizes that the figure is dissociating from the world around him and cannot even see the people around him any longer. “Both physically and symbolically, the instrument fills the space around the solitary figure, who seems oblivious to his blindness and poverty as he plays.” ("The Old Guitarist, 1903 by Pablo Picasso.").
Dali, conversely, has lots of negative space as the figure is small in the bottom right corner. This interpretation focuses on the larger landscape and its emptiness, and again the figure retreats into himself instead of seeking out companionship. Hopper’s appears simple at first, but, “…The lack of details invites the spectator to complete the image by speculating on past and impending events, on the relationships between the characters, and on the desires and anxieties provoked by our own need to examine these characters’ lives.” (Peacock 2017). Another interesting detail is that there is no door, so despite it seeming like a public place, it is secluded from the rest of the world, which affects the viewer’s sense of comfort. “The observer follows the scene with delight that he cannot be seen, but at the same time he feels a strange inclination to avert his gaze, for he is aware of a certain anxiety in his observation.” (Murár 2017, 244-261). This conflict helps recreate the feeling of loneliness for the viewer.
Traditionally, the most common artistic element for emulating loneliness and sadness is the color blue, and in all three paintings, the artists employ blue as well as a variation of its complement, orange, to create depth. Pairing them creates a space that is calm, quiet, and melancholy. Picasso’s application is the most obvious as it’s in the height of his blue period, so nearly the entire image contains blue, as the brown guitar is the only shift in color (“Pablo Picasso's Blue Period - 1901 to 1904.”). Dali uses blue in his background along the distant horizon, while the rest of the image uses neutral, earthy tones so the figure blends into the landscape. In Hopper’s restaurant scene, our eyes are drawn to the centered man in the blue suit, and all the shadows have blue undertones as well. A reddish orange lines the roof tops, as well as coating the upper half of the building across the street, the countertops, and even in the door within the restaurant. The complements offer some variety, making each image more visually appealing, although everything is still subdued with no bright color. Blue is the dominant, critical element, but each artist needed another color to sculpt the space and avoid monotony.
These similar elements among the images came out of very different artist backgrounds; each artist’s own culture and life influenced their creations, yet they had similar visions and products, raising the question of the universality of loneliness. Picasso’s “The Old Guitarist” was painted in his Blue Period, a series of mostly monochromatic paintings inspired by his experiences in Spain, seeking to “reflect his experience of relative poverty and instability, depicting beggars, street urchines, the old and frail and the blind”, the “desolation of social outsiders” (“Pablo Picasso's Blue Period - 1901 to 1904.”, n.d.). This is clearly the case in this image, depicting an old man perhaps begging for spare change, but having given up as he has turned away from the outside world, though he continues to play and find solace in his guitar (image 1). Picasso himself knew what it was like to be impoverished, giving him a unique insight for the image ("The Old Guitarist, 1903 by Pablo Picasso.", n.d.). Another likely influence on the work in terms of background is that during the same time of its creation, “literature of the Symbolist movement included blind characters who possessed powers of inner vision” ("The Old Guitarist, 1903 by Pablo Picasso.", n.d.). This idea of inner vision drives the deeper meaning of this blind man’s internal world he has retreated into.
Salvador Dali was a key contributor to the Surrealism movement, which in the 1924 Manifesto of Surrealism, is contrasted against Realism: saying Realism is a mockery of our intelligence. “Our brains are dulled by the incurable mania of wanting to make the unknown known, classifiable. The desire for analysis wins out over the sentiments” (Breton 2012, 9). Surrealism, then, refocuses toward the sentimental unknown, talking extensively of alternative dream states and warped memory. Within the definition given by André Breton, Surrealism is “Dictated by thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern,” and is “based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of thought” (Breton 2012, 26). This is evident in Dali’s dreamlike depiction of the ongoing landscape and misshapen body of the figure. In Dali’s personal commentary on the movement, he reiterates the goal of surrealism in its ability to “penetrate the deepest layers of the mental” by focusing on representation and the unconscious over mechanical functions (Breton 2012, 276). In his work, Loneliness, we see the literal and figurative layers of the piece in the depth of the background as well as the interpretability of the image. Since the work is Surrealist, despite the figure’s apparently empty setting, this could just be a metaphor or representation of the figure’s internal state as the figure perceives the vast expanse within their own mind.
Edward Hopper, a transformative artist of the 20th century, utilized an entirely different setting for his painting, the center of urban life of the city, and yet the restaurant depicted is quiet, secluded, and nearly empty. He offered a counterpoint to typical American optimism, where in this changing industrial society, he sought to depict urban loneliness and despair (Peacock 2017). “He turned iconic American spaces such as diners (…) into spaces reflective of the artist’s interior realm, spaces of mood, feeling, contemplation of one’s position in the world.” (Peacock 2017). The figures in his painting, “(…) with hollowed and dark eyes gazing from windows or down at their drinks, are combined to remind spectators that the default state of humanity is isolation. In Hopper’s works, even a buzzing city doesn’t remedy isolation, but heightens it” (Peacock 2017). These differences in setting and composition convey a different kind of loneliness, feeling alone even around others within a city. This is likely also the case in “The Old Guitarist” even though we can’t see the rest of the scene, and even then, the image is set up to have us focus on the figure’s alternative mental state within. Dali’s “Loneliness” also wants the viewer to inquire about the figure’s mental state, even though in contrast, we are shown a vast empty landscape in which the figure appears truly alone.
Similar stylistic approaches crossed cultures to convey the same emotion. All three images use blue and subtly include the complement orange, and all three have huddled figures facing away from the viewer as if they have given up seeking companionship to retreat into the self. Although the compositions and settings differ, this merely accounts for their different backgrounds and artistic movements. Between Picasso’s Blue Period, Dali’s Surrealism, and Hopper’s modern American Realism, they all still retain surprisingly similar technical elements and overall themes. In the art world, loneliness is a common experience, and artists across cultures continue to express it in unique ways, while still tending to return to the same shared elements of loneliness.
Annotated Bibliography
Breton, André. Manifestoes of Surrealism. Translated by Richard Seaver and Helen R. Lane. Ann Arbor, MI: Univ. of Michigan Press, 2012.
This source provided insight about many of the core values and goals of surrealism, as well as some commentary directly from Dali to provide context for the art movement surrounding his piece, “Loneliness”. These values provide additional context for the artwork with a textual analysis.
Murár, Tomáš, “Nighthawks in The Age of Anxiety Interpretation of the painting by Edward Hopper by means of the ‘Baroque Eclogue’of Wystan Hugh Auden”, Umění (Art), 3/2017, LXV, pp. 244–261. https://drury.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aft&AN=126810683&site=ehost-live.
Within his comparison of Nighthawks to another art piece, Murár provides great analytical insights for the painting independently as well. One example is the observations about the public setting and lack of door on the building.
"Pablo Picasso's Blue Period - 1901 to 1904." Pablo Picasso Paintings, Quotes, and Biography. Accessed November 14, 2018. https://www.pablopicasso.org/blue-period.jsp.
This article provides information about what led Picasso into his Blue Period and what this meant for his creations. It describes when he was impoverished himself, and how this was conveyed in his art later.
Peacock, James. "Edward Hopper: The Artist Who Evoked Urban Loneliness and Disappointment with Beautiful Clarity." The Conversation. May 18, 2017. Accessed November 15, 2018. https://theconversation.com/edward-hopper-the-artist-who-evoked-urban-loneliness-and-disappointment-with-beautiful-clarity-77636.
This source provided context from Hopper’s life and the ideals in painting that he pursued. It’s broadly focused on Hopper’s background rather than specifically Nighthawks, lending towards an urban environmental analysis of Hopper’s works within changing American city life.
"The Old Guitarist, 1903 by Pablo Picasso." Pablo Picasso Paintings, Quotes, and Biography. Accessed November 13, 2018. https://www.pablopicasso.org/old-guitarist.jsp.
Specific to the painting “The Old Guitarist”, this article provides a more in-depth analysis of the compositional and stylistic choices as well as interpretations of the piece, such as the way the blind and impoverished could represent inner vision in the literature of the time.
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