Social & Cultural Geography, Vol. 3, No. 2, 2002

Fear of the city 1882–1967: Edward Hopper and the discourse of anti-urbanism

Tom Slater Department of Geography, King’s College London, Strand Campus, London WC2R 2LS, UK

This paper traces the extent to which some of the major cityscape representations of the American ‘Realist’ painter, Edward Hopper, have contributed to the production and articulation of the discourse of anti-urbanism in American culture. Following an introduc- tory background to this discourse, the paper discusses the development of Realism in American art, and how the urban representations that emerged were a response to the rapidly changing, early twentieth-century American city. A brief biographical account of Edward Hopper is presented to explore the intertextual inuences behind his anti-urban sentiments, and how these translated into the unique form of Realism for which Hopper is renowned. This sets the stage for a reading of four key Hopper works that are suggestive of the anti-urban discourse: Night Shadows, Nighthawks, Approaching a City and Sunday. The powers of representation and the artist’s popularity have fed into the discourse of anti-urbanism—a discourse that has a material effect on urban life in America.

Key words: discourse, anti-urbanism, cityscape, Edward Hopper, representation.

Introduction The ‘celebrated thinkers’ to which they refer include Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Waldo Emer- But when in American history has there not been a son, Henry David Thoreau, Edgar Allan Poe, fear of the city … ? (Kazin 1983: 14) Henry James, Frank Lloyd Wright and Lewis Mumford. The writings of these individuals In their seminal work on the intellectual roots were seen to have left America with a ‘power- of American anti-urban discourse, Morton and ful tradition of anti-urbanism’ (White and Lucia White observe that White 1962: 3), a legacy of distrust, suspicion and prejudice towards urban areas which was enthusiasm for the American city has not been typi- installed and strengthened by frequent refer- cal or predominant in our intellectual history. Fear ences to the joys of nature and the moral has been the more common reaction. For a variety of superiority of rural life. As Beauregard (1993: reasons our most celebrated thinkers have expressed 14) argues, anti-urban sentiment has its origins different degrees of ambivalence and animosity to- in the introduction in large American cities of ward the city. (1962: 1) ‘values and practices antithetical to those held

ISSN 1464-9365 print/ISSN 1470-1197 online/02/020135–20 Ó 2002 Taylor & Francis Ltd DOI: 10.1080/14649360220133916 136 Tom Slater and followed by people living in rural areas’. social isolation and confusion, added fuel to The burgeoning system of capitalist accumula- the legacy of urban fear left by Emerson, tion in the nineteenth century and its manifes- Thoreau and the transcendentalists. The ideas tation in widespread industrialization and and attitudes of the sociologists may have dif- intense urbanization was viewed with dismay fered, but their writings on what can happen to by subscribers to traditional rural values, who societies and individuals when cities expand did saw the cities as places which encouraged a little to reverse the tide of anti-urban thinking ‘severing of the ties to those basic human val- which had penetrated the public imagination, ues that provide the foundation of a moral even if the city was not always portrayed as the existence’ (Beauregard 1993: 15). A negative demon it was made out to be by those who discourse of the city, which began with the came before them. Blended together, this is the pastoral musings of Thomas Jefferson and was result: furthered signiŽcantly by the transcendental contemplations of Ralph Waldo Emerson, grew The city was seen imaginatively as the heart of stronger and became embedded in social life contemporary darkness, a secular Hell—temptation, through powerful representations of urban trap and punishment all in one—exciting, rich in malaise in late nineteenth- and early twentieth- potentiality for the ambitious, threatening to the century American literature, art and social the- weak, destructive of traditional mores, creator of ory. Far from being celebrated as signs of novelties, of anonymity, breeder of the pervasive industrial and economic progress, American modern diseases of anomie, alienation and ennui, a cities were often viewed as dirty and disease- jungle of brick, stone and smoke, with its greedy ridden arenas of degenerate, immoral and cor- predators and apathetic victims, its brutal indiffer- rupt behaviour, the exact and unruly opposites ence to either communal value or individual feeling. of small town and rural America, and therefore (Nochlin 1971: 151) places which middle-class Americans would be wise to avoid for their own well-being. It was to this body of anti-urban sentiment Many would argue that these anti-urban sensi- that European social theorists such as Ferdi- bilities have not disappeared from American nand Tonnies and Emile Durkheim delivered culture, and much of this is due to the impact their classic studies of the social and psycholog- of images of dystopia we see in a variety of ical effects of rampant urbanization (Knox media, cinematic, literary, artistic and photo- 1994: 267–269). While it would be incorrect to graphic representations of the American city. describe their immensely inuential and diverse Davis (1998: 276) points out that Los Angeles perspectives on the changing patterns of social has been destroyed 138 times in various motion life in the city as anti-urban, it would be pictures since 1909, and a look at recent movies equally incorrect to downplay the role they had set in New York such as Seven (1995), Clockers in reinforcing anti-urban sentiment. Tonnies’s (1995), Sleepers (1996) and The Bone Collector elaborations of the impersonal and superŽcial (1999) would suggest to the public that the city human associations of an urban gessellschaft is a place of violence, suffering, crime and Žlth society, the opposite of community (gemein- which should be avoided altogether. This is schaft), coupled with Durkheim’s plaintive pro- conŽrmed by Janet Abu-Lughod, who points jections of the urban condition of anomie and out the following with reference to the the deviant behaviour which might accompany dystopian Žlms set in New York: Fear of the city 137

A cursory survey of Žlm titles highlights recurring anti-urban sentiment by which he was themes: death, terror, stranger, phantom, wrong inuenced and to which he contributed. A man, wrong number, lost, no way out, screaming, closer reading of his portrayals of city life is crying, alone, dark corner, victim, strangers, killer, necessary for a fuller understanding of such double life, silence, shadows, crime, jungle, middle sentiments past and present. To provide the of the night, naked city, force of evil. (1999: 184– necessary theoretical framework for a consider- 185) ation of Hopper’s work, I will begin by convey- ing and unpacking some of the complexity of Lees and Demeritt (1998: 335) provocatively the term ‘Realism’ in the visual arts, before term this anti-urban discourse as ‘Sin City’, exploring some biographical material on the something ‘only ever realised discursively, artist to demonstrate the dawning of his anti- through powerful and materially productive urban feelings and how they translated into his practices of representation’.1 unique brand of Realism. The discussion will In this paper I will look at some of the works then proceed into a reading of four key Hopper of the quintessential American ‘Realist’ painter, images, before concluding with some com- Edward Hopper (1882–1967), to examine the ments on how work along these lines might be ways in which this immensely popular artist a useful and productive way of tracing and represented the city, speciŽcally New York, perhaps eradicating unfounded urban fears and assess how far the poetics and politics of through sensitive and thorough attention to representation (Cosgrove and Jackson 1987)— artistic representations of the city. or what Barnes and Duncan (1992: 5) refer to as ‘the cultural practices of signiŽcation’—have contributed to the production and reproduction Realisms, representation and the city of the discourse of anti-urbanism in American society. The words of White and White ade- A newcomer to the term ‘realism’ is faced with quately summarize the impetus for this paper: a bewildering array of meanings and concepts, and realism has consistently escaped tidy and Not only has the anti-urbanism of our intellectual simple deŽnition. On one hand, this is due to tradition directly inuenced the popular mind, but the many different forms of Realism2 within the tradition has probably had an even greater effect arts and literature (Social Realism, Baroque on ordinary Americans as it has been transmitted by Realism, Photo Realism, New Realism and so writers who ourish somewhere between the highest forth), and on the other, the agonizingly com- reaches of our culture and the popular mind. (1962: plex history and nature of the philosophy, the- 203) ories, methodology and practice of realism in Western scientiŽc thought. In human geogra- I am interested in how anti-urbanism has been phy, engagement with realist philosophies transmitted not by a writer but by an artist reached a peak in the 1980s, but as Cloke, Philo with a huge following, whose paintings are and Sadler (1991: 134) observed, there was often seen as crystallizations of American land- considerable suspicion that some realist work scapes, values and society at the time they was ‘founded on a less than full recognition of appeared. However, I argue that the meanings its complexity’ and that this led many authors conveyed by Hopper’s art are not bound to any to fall into a trap of ‘subscribing to the realist time period; they live on through the legacy of position in name but not in nature’. This is the 138 Tom Slater

Žrst of two reasons why realist approaches perceptions is central to both artistic and philo- declined in number and signiŽcance during the sophical forms of realism, there is much that is 1990s. The second reason has been neatly cap- different about these forms that is well beyond tured by Derek Gregory in his entry on realism the focus of this essay. It is the historical in the most recent edition of the Dictionary of foundations of artistic Realism in the nine- Human Geography: teenth century, and how these fed into early twentieth-century American Realism which [O]ne needs to remember that ‘realism’ refers not was prevalent when Edward Hopper began his only to a twentieth century philosophy but also to a career, which provide an appropriate starting mode of representation in the visual arts and litera- point for the analysis of his art. ture which was particularly prominent in Europe Many people look at a Realist work of art, and North America in the nineteenth century. This is describe what they see as ‘realistic’, and with- not to say that realist philosophies require a realist out any questioning of the scene they have just aesthetics—they almost certainly do not—but simply observed think ‘that is how it is there’. Art to note that the attentiveness to theoretical work historians, however, would be quick to inform which realism succeeded in making so important for us that this is naõ¨ve, and that Realism is far analysis during the 1980s was, in the next decade, more complicated than simply a copycat image: extended to equally searching theoretical reection on description . (2000: 675; emphasis in the original) The commonplace notion that Realism is a ‘styleless’ or transparent style, a mere simulacrum or mirror Gregory is referring to the ‘crisis of representa- image of visual reality, is another barrier to its tion’ that has been a central concern of much understanding as an historical and stylistic phenom- human geographical inquiry since the cultural enon. This is a gross simpliŽcation, for Realism was turn of the discipline. Realism as a philosophy no more a mere mirror of reality than any other of science was invaluable to the development of style. (Nochlin 1971: 14) a more sophisticated understanding of the ways in which space is a key determinant in the structuring of social relations, but as times For Nochlin, the aim of Realist painting was changed and post-structural sensibilities grew ‘to give a truthful, objective and impartial rep- to question such structuring through its blur- resentation of the real world, based on meticu- ring of the boundaries between representation lous observation of contemporary life’ (1971: and reality, material and discursive, realism 13). Throughout her landmark survey of nine- was nudged into the sidelines and ‘its star teenth-century Realism, Nochlin reiterates the seemed to wane’ (Gregory 2000: 675). Realists’ desire for verisimilitude, and that their One purpose of this essay is to consider how common tendency to see things ‘as they were’ an engagement with Realism(s) in the visual was ‘inseparable from their general beliefs, arts, as opposed to realism as a philosophy of their world, their heritage and the very quality science, could inform cultural geographers of what they were divesting themselves of and seeking to understand and describe the material rebelling against’ (1971: 51). Gustave Courbet, world through the discourses embedded within perhaps the most famous Realist of all, once artistic representations of cityscapes. While the wrote that same undercurrent of a ‘real’ world of physical things existing independently of our senses and painting is an essentially concrete art and can only Fear of the city 139 consist of the presentation of real and existing artists. According to Prendeville (2000: 24), it things. It is a completely physical language, the was Bellows in particular whose paintings words of which consist of all visible objects; an ‘most programmatically fulŽl Henri’s injunc- object which is abstract, not visible, non-existent, is tion to his students to paint the life [my empha- not within the realm of painting. (quoted in Nochlin sis] of the modern city, implicitly that of its 1971: 23) poor and immigrant communities’. Bellows was perhaps the chief reason why the painters It is hardly surprising then, given the preoccu- of the Ash Can School came to be called the pation with the physical, that many nineteenth- ‘New Realists’. What was new was a celebra- century Realists often chose to document the tory commitment to painting ‘ordinary’ people built environment of the city. Rarely, however, living en masse within the city, or as Prendev- did Realists present us with close-ups of urban ille puts it, a sustained attempt to portray ‘the dwellers and the minutiae of social life within a city’s physical substance uniting with the hu- metropolis. The classic nineteenth-century Re- man life it contains to comprise a common alist depiction of the city is from a distance, the material, a social fabric’ (2000: 31). Ash Can cityscape or vista, which precludes moral com- artists did not shun earlier forms of Realism; ment on the people within the city, and bolsters they too were concerned with the quest for the notion of the Realist as a spectator of urban ‘truth’ and were equally as meticulous in their life rather than a more involved participant in attention to detail and rejection of abstraction, it—something which had a profound inuence but the tenets of nineteenth-century Realism on the city views of Impressionists such as were reŽned and extended to provide a frame- Manet and Renoir (Nochlin 1971: 168–169). work for an increased sensitivity to the human Realist representations of the city were no aspects of unprecedented urbanization. While less plentiful at the beginning of the twentieth not as concerned with social inequities and century, but they took a quite different form to urban injustice as the Social Realists of the their nineteenth-century antecedents. The 1930s, the Ash Can artists’ lasting inuence is American ‘Ash Can’ School of painters, some- the uniŽcation of the physical and the human times referred to as ‘The Eight’, were a group in the urban milieu. of urban Realists who had worked as illustra- Douglas Tallack’s suggestive essay on the tors for Philadelphia news journals before ar- attempts of the Ash Can School to represent a riving in New York to study with the rapidly changing New York is notable for its portraitist Robert Henri. The cityscapes of argument that the artists within the School artists such as John Sloan, George Bellows and were so caught up in an effort to ‘know’ the Everett Shinn produced between 1900 and 1913 city that they often chose ‘Žctional’ points of were notable for their tendency to deploy the view from which to document their many wide panoramas of the nineteenth-century Re- thoughts and impressions derived from being alists, but with far more attention to urban ‘caught up in the routines of the city’ (2000: subjects and the crowded spaces of the trans- 30). Thus the social fabric which Prendeville forming metropolis that surrounded them. This posits is, to Tallack, an amalgam of different could have been a critical reaction to some scenes blended together into one representation Impressionist work, where people were often of ‘an urban environment which threatened reduced to mere brush strokes because of the defeat for individuals and groups who could very distant perspectives employed by the not get some epistemological grasp on it’ (2000: 140 Tom Slater

26). It was this ‘threatening’ urban environ- permanently from 1910 to his death in 1967. ment that saw the permanent settlement of The roots of his approach to the city can be Edward Hopper in 1910. Hopper studied with seen in a compelling discussion of his child- Robert Henri from 1902 to 1906 at the New hood by Gail Levin (1995a), who shows us that York School of Art, which has often led to the place in which he was raised was one where erroneous associations of Hopper with the Ash nature, community, religious education, patri- Can School (the fact that George Bellows was otism and duty were seen to lead to a ‘solid a classmate of Hopper’s adds to the confusion). moral existence’. However, the author points Hopper’s Realism, however, is unique, and as out that the 1890s, the decade of Hopper’s we shall see later in four of his paintings, very adolescence, marked ‘the passage from the different from that of the Ash Can painters, strong moral principles of rural and small-town and also different from the overt displays of America into the beginning of urban and indus- social concern and political protest of 1930s trial development that eroded the traditional Social Realists such as Reginald Marsh and ways of life and produced growing alienation’ Philip Evergood. The reasons for Hopper’s id- (1995a: 12). Levin identiŽed this period as the iosyncrasies can be discerned from some bio- root of the conicts that Hopper lived through- graphical material, to which I now turn. out his life:

All his life Hopper felt acutely the conicts between Edward Hopper traditional and modern, rural and urban, American and foreign ways. He would return to explore them [T]o understand … representations fully we must again and again in his work. (1995a: 111) know something about the context of its authors and audience. (Barnes and Duncan 1992: 4) Crucial to the development of Hopper’s atti- tude towards the city were the writings of Great art is the outward expression of an inner life Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David in the artist, and this inner life will result in his [sic] Thoreau, two individuals who were known for personal vision of the world. (Edward Hopper 1953, their dislike and distrust of city life in favour of quoted in Hobbs 1987: 64) romantic notions of the entwinement of hu- mans with nature, and with whom Hopper felt This paper began with some comments on the close intellectual afŽnity (Schmied 1995: 10). antipathy towards urban places common to On Emerson, Hopper once told an interviewer American intellectuals (Beauregard 1993; Kazin ‘I admire him greatly. I read him a lot. I read 1983; White and White 1962). Hopper was also him over and over again’ (quoted in Hobbs a man of great intellect, somewhat of a recluse 1987: 65). Levin (1995b: 109) believes Hopper who spent a lifetime reading poetry, literature, held Emerson in such high esteem that he drama and philosophy, absorbing what he ‘sought to express the Emersonian vision by learned from books and observed from life, and transforming reality into art’. White and White applying it to canvas. His childhood was spent (1962: 30) call Thoreau’s classic Walden [1854] in an upper-middle-class Dutch settlement near a ‘bible of anti-urbanism … The values it es- the Hudson River in New York State, a world pouses are essentially those of the isolated indi- away from the expanding metropolis to the vidual, living in nature and free of social south where he would make his name and live attachments’. This is interesting, for most of Fear of the city 141 the people in Hopper’s urban paintings are life suggest his highly ambivalent attitude toward the isolated individuals who appear out of place, changes occurring in twentieth-century society; it is detached from the city both socially and spa- his profound alienation from contemporary life that tially as it changes around them, and seemingly makes his art so characteristic of modernity itself. bewildered by the threat to ‘nature’ posed by (1995a: 229) the built environment (Hobbs 1987; Lyons 1995). Thus the concept of intertextuality in Hopper lived through a time of continuous artistic representation—that texts draw on changes to the cityscape, and changes in the other texts which are themselves based on yet neighbourhood where he lived, Greenwich Vil- more texts (Barnes and Duncan 1992: 2)—be- lage, were as profound as in any area of the comes clearer and credible when considering city. Hopper was dismayed by the ‘crushing of the works from which Hopper drew inspi- Washington Square’ by the erection of tall ration. Another writer who harboured an ap- buildings around the park which he saw as proach to the city to which Hopper could relate ‘huge coarse and swollen mounds—blunt, was Henry James, whose The American Scene clumsy and bleaching the sunlight with their (1907) was full of negative portrayals of a New dismal pale yellow sides’ (Levin 1995a: 247). York placed in cultural opposition to European Such signs of unruliness and dislocation were cities, not least because James had been absent serious violations of all that he had been from America for a quarter of a century. Hop- brought up to believe, that humans should be per spent his early twenties in Paris, which he in harmony with nature and situated away described to be ‘very graceful and beauti- from anything which would disrupt this most ful … after the raw disorder of New York’ Victorian, even puritan, way of existence. The (quoted in Levin 1995a: 279), and the year workings of modernity were antithetical to a James’s book was published was the same year man who disapproved of social and structural Hopper returned to New York from Paris. change, of overcrowding, of disorder. In fact, Levin informs us that The American Scene was one wonders why he wanted to live in such a avidly consumed by Hopper as it viewed heavily populated area at all after reading the modernity and urbanization with suspicion, remarks of his long-suffering wife, Jo: and returning to New York after a lengthy absence made rapid urban change all the more Ed is anything but a social being and he won’t tangible and unsettling to the artist (1995a). bother himself with people at all. He’s not a bit nice The appearance of skyscrapers in New York’s and gracious to the people I’ve introduced him cityscape was seen by James and then Hopper to—people we meet on the street—he won’t go as representative of encroaching, unwelcome anywhere to meet any of my friends. (quoted in modernity—a theme which is never far from a Levin 1995a: 177) Hopper painting and usually depicted with trepidation and uneasiness. Take the following Although not an outright misanthrope, Hopper observation, again by Levin: was a deeply private man lost in the worlds of his art and his passion for reading. He lived in He [Hopper] rarely represented skyscrapers at all, New York City for most of his adult life, yet it and when he did, he reduced them to fragmentary is hard to Žnd a Hopper painting where this glimpses or intrusions on the cityscape … His recur- city is celebrated or loved, or presented with rent visual ironies on the manifestations of modern any optimism. Much of this arose from his 142 Tom Slater observations of social life in New York during a meditative calm for a frenetic view of progress. the inter-war years of Prohibition and De- (1987: 18) pression; strikes, unemployment, protest, pov- erty and uncertain futures had a profound Hopper’s besmirchment of the entire modern effect on his vision of the city. Hopper saw age attracted attention because it appealed to what could happen to a city when its growth the anti-urban imaginings of much of middle- was explosive, when its economy collapsed, class America. His work struck a chord with when some of its people were left behind and Americans seeking to express their nostalgic struggled to make sense of the transforming yearnings for past times and places: world in which they lived. How, then, do all these inuences and Hopper presents glimpses of private lives of quiet changes translate into the unique form of Re- despair lived within the public arena. And though alism for which Hopper is renowned? Broadly much of his art is centered on the failed relationships deŽned, Hopper’s urban work is a twentieth- between people or the alienation of people from century joining of nineteenth-century transcen- their environment, Hopper can also get an almost dentalist beliefs with nineteenth-century inexplicable sense of yearning and loss … Some of Realism’s tendency to document and interpret his appeal may lie … in the desire to see something city scenes in a relentless quest for a hidden American, and by inference, something virtuous, in a ‘truth’. The products are far from convivial landscape that now only exists in small remnants. ‘stills’ of the American city that evoke senses of (Lyons 1995: xiii) loss, loneliness, alienation and despair— mournful commentaries on the unhappy ma- The American landscape idealized by Emerson, terial consequences of rampant, erosive Thoreau and their many followers was eroded modernity. Hopper scholar Robert Hobbs elab- by modernity’s leading edge of urbanization, orates: and in the visual arts it is the work of Edward Hopper that documents this process with the most regular and solemn introspection. Perhaps Seen by themselves, these stills are mysterious and it is Prendeville (2000: 79) who provides the haunting. They evoke a desire for the rest of the most precise summation of Hopper’s Realism narrative, and they powerfully convey the break-up when he states that the locations the artist of the storyline, the disjunction that is characteristic depicts are ‘in-between’ places, which ‘we are of modern life. In this manner they awaken in the familiar with yet not at home in’. viewer a desire for the whole, and thus elicit feelings With this highly abbreviated summary of his of isolation and loss. The feelings of loneliness main inuences and select character aspects in experienced by viewers of Hopper’s art … come place, I now want to look at four of his from the fact that a continuum has been broken. well-known pieces, Night Shadows (1921), The machinery of industrialism is no longer operat- Nighthawks (1942), Approaching the City ive, and the illusion of progress as a motivating life (1946) and Sunday (1926) as examples of repre- force is no longer believable. By stripping modern sentations of the American city as a place of life of its illusions of momentum, Hopper leaves his isolation, fear and loss. They are paintings viewers isolated; he shows the breakdown of tra- which are suggestive of the anti-urbanism men- ditional spiritual underpinnings in the modern world tioned throughout this discussion, and their and reveals a poverty of a society that has forsaken popularity has perhaps served to uproot the Fear of the city 143 discourse within the spaces of the artwork and Hopper scholars have commented on the send it away from New York, intensifying the high viewpoint of Night Shadows, suggesting anti-urban sensibilities that have pervaded that it is the most important factor in the American culture for so long. generation of the painting’s haunting mood, ‘creating a sense of tension that is almost cine- matic in its effect’ (Levin 1995b: 117). Hopper Night Shadows was a frequent patron of cinema and theatre (Levin 1995a; Lyons 1995), and much of this Night Shadows (1921, see Figure 1) is at Žrst can be seen in his ‘stills’ of New York, where glance a simple sketch of a lone Žgure advanc- he ‘achieves an effect akin to that of a tracking ing along a deserted sidewalk under a movie camera whose frame impassively unites streetlight, a somewhat innocuous, gritty and its contents’ (Prendeville 2000: 79). The divid- dreary image that does not warrant immediate ing shadow of the streetlight post leaves us on intellectual scrutiny. However, if we pay closer the edge of our seats, wondering what the next attention to the meanings and messages be- frame will be. Where is the pedestrian going? neath the image, or ‘textualize’ the streetscape Why is he there? What will happen to him? in order to view it as ‘a signifying system What is around the corner in the darkness? As through which a social system is communi- Prendeville neatly summarizes, the emptiness of cated, reproduced, experienced and explored’ Hopper scenes ‘illustrates what is generally the (Duncan 1990: 184), Night Shadows becomes case: rather than imagining situations, his as eerie as its title suggests. The contrast be- paintings offer spaces for imagination’ (2000: tween the areas under the streetlight and the 79). The anti-urbanism in Night Shadows is shadows caused by the presence of the corner communicated not so much by what we can store is particularly striking, showing Hopper’s see, but by what we cannot see—that which is tendency towards using different degrees of left to our imaginings, to which the pedestrian light to enhance the threatening, alienating pos- is approaching. Hopper thus follows a trend in tures of buildings, and how they separate the nineteenth-century Realism, where paintings Žgures in his scenes from the worlds in which ‘were socially inammatory not so much be- they Žnd themselves. The Žgure in the image is cause of what they said … but because of what anonymous and mysterious, a night-time they did not say’ (Nochlin 1971: 46). The sim- walker with a large shadow doubling the men- plicity of the sketch, nothing more than light, acing effect of the unknown. Rolf Renner ob- building and Žgure, bolsters this effect, lending serves that the shadow of the streetlight post clarity to a simple yet stern suggestion that cutting across the brightest area ‘generates an urban spaces at night are to be approached unmistakable sense of menace … as if the with caution. Along these lines, Hobbs (1987: man’s walking route were taking him beyond a 50) shows the power of the discourse embedded divide and into a danger zone’ (1990: 41). The within the scene when he argues that the ‘ordi- dramatic juxtaposition of darkness and light, nary nature of the buildings and street endows the former used to legitimate the ‘norm’ of the the work with poignancy since it suggests that latter and strengthen the comfort and safety drama could occur anywhere in the United that comes with a sense of the familiar, perhaps States’. The time of day and the anonymity of hints at Hopper’s suspicious and cautious ap- both Žgure and location conspire to send an proach towards urban places. anti-urban message away from where it was 144 Tom Slater

Figure 1 Night Shadows. Edward Hopper (1921). Etching. Reproduced with permission of the San Diego Museum of Art (Museum purchase through the Edwin S. and Carol Dempster Larsen Memorial Fund). produced, tapping into an American imagin- (1942, see Figure 2), and once more the appar- ation already imbued with unruly images of ent simplicity of the painting masks its hidden what lurks in cities at night. discursive undercurrent. Hopper contested those viewers who looked beneath the surface, saying that the work showed little more than ‘a Nighthawks restaurant on Greenwich Avenue where two streets meet’ (quoted in Renner 1990: 80), but Unconsciously, probably, I was painting the loneli- ness of a large city. (Edward Hopper, quoted in there are some key indicators that help us to Levin 1995a: 349) generate disquiet in a scene which has a calm surface appearance, and thus situate the com- A New York night is once again the setting for position Žrmly within the anti-urban mould. Hopper’s most famous work, Nighthawks Like Night Shadows, it is a scene of contrasting Fear of the city 145 qualities of light, but this time between inside tions experienced by individuals hint at a broader and outside. The only light for the empty crisis of cultural self-conŽguration engendered by streets comes from within the restaurant, am- urban America. The noir thrillers replace the cer- plifying the motif of darkness outside and in- tainties of It’s A Wonderful Life with a more nu- tensifying the painting’s communication of anced, more disorganized, much bleaker vision. loneliness. Nowhere is this more effective than (Krutnik 1995: 99) in the darkness behind the couple at the coun- ter, which sits uneasily with the restaurant’s Krutnik brilliantly reveals how Žlm noir em- bland cream interior and its glaring lighting. bodied and fed the anti-urban sentiments of Hobbs contends that it is the use of light that movie-goers through its depiction of cities as is responsible for the mood of the entire scene: disorderly, diseased, corrupted, dark, abysmal, threatening, and most relevant to this essay, Circular in form, this building is an island that ‘curiously empty’ (1995: 91). While many of beckons and repels; and the uorescent lighting is Hopper’s urban representations could be stills intimidating, alienating, and dehumanising. It cre- from a noir thriller, it is in Nighthawks where ates an unreal and artiŽcial feeling of warmth, an references to the noir city can be discerned with atmosphere that is clinical and more in tune with a most ease—the strong theatrical light, the curi- laboratory than a restaurant. (1987: 129) ously empty streets, the mysterious Žgure with his back to us, the dark, forbidding spaces of There is contrast within the restaurant too— the corner and buildings behind the diner. The the third character at the counter with his back title of the painting also suggests noir themes of to us, nearest the street, seems more in tune people preying on others in the dark spaces of with outside than inside relative to the others, the unsafe city. The interlocking scripts of and less of an extra on a deserted stage, per- alienation, isolation, loneliness, fear and a haps because of his positioning and solitude. suggestion that something disorderly might oc- This creates a sense that the couple facing us cur outside immediately generated a sympath- are alienated from their surroundings, literally etic response from art critics and the public ‘out of place’ in a space which stands for little alike—the painting was soon recognized as an other than isolation. important American artefact and sold to the Hopper was fascinated with cinema, and it is Art Institute of Chicago soon after its com- no coincidence that Nighthawks was painted at pletion, where it remains today. Nighthawks a time when the Žlm noir genre was beginning also demonstrates a technique which Hopper to penetrate American public discourse. Levin used again and again in his work. He could (1995a: 408) notes that the genre’s ‘potent dra- have painted a far more threatening city, with matic scenes and generally pessimistic outlook more dubious characters, with litter on the on life appealed to Hopper’, and the Hopper streets, signs of crime, more suffering—yet he city has much in common with the noir city as refrained, preferring to avoid extremities and articulated by Frank Krutnik’s subtle reference thus suggesting, as he did with Night Shadows, to Marx: that these scenes might be around the corner by way of the emptiness of the cityscape. An Dark with something more than night, the noir city empty city at night, captured at standstill, is is a realm in which all that seemed solid melts into always more threatening, more sinister, than an the shadows, and where the traumas and disjunc- animated or extreme portrayal of urban fears. 146 Tom Slater , n o i t c e l l o C t r A n a c i r e m A f o s d n e i r F , . d m e c v r 4 . e s 2 e 5 1 R s 3 t 1 h . g 4 i 8 R , s l l a v A n . a o c g n a c o i l i h o C , f 2 o 4 9 e 1 t , u s t i k t s w n a I h t t r h A g i e N h , T 7 6 9 Ó 1 , – 1 2 5 8 . 8 2 1 4 , 9 1 n a c i r e m A , r e p p o H d r a w d E 2 e r u g i F Fear of the city 147

Figure 3 Boulevard of Broken Dreams. Gottfried Helnwein (1987). Reproduced with kind permission of the artist.

Nighthawks is one of the most famous paint- ‘private lives of quiet despair lived within the ings in the history of American art, full of the public arena’ (Lyons 1995: xiii). It says much anti-urban messages which pervade American about the mood of Nighthawks that these public discourse. It has received numerous celebrities all had lonely lives and tragic deaths, adaptations, underscoring its inuence and the and were isolated from the world around them sympathetic response of the public to the ‘noc- throughtheiradulationandstatus.Theworldout- turnal urban disquiet’ it communicates (Levin side the diner is the arena in which the dreams 1995b: 115). Among the more famous of these of these celebrities and their followers were is the 1987 poster of the Austrian artist Got- broken, and in this interpretation the diner can tfried Helnwein (see Figure 3). This parody is be viewed as providing Hobbs’ ‘unreal and interesting for the characters that Helnwein artiŽcial feeling of warmth’ (1987: 129), a brief chooses to occupy the diner in place of Hop- respite from the world that ultimately defeated per’s anonymous Žgures. James Dean, them. By placing four American icons into an Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe and Elvis icon of American art, Helnwein opens up Presley are American icons whose private lives Nighthawks to closer iconographic inspection, were as tragic as their public lives were remark- exposing the symbolic meanings of the painting able, and all four of them can be seen to to cement its position as a landmark of twenti- embody the Hopper theme mentioned earlier, of eth-century anti-urbanism. 148 Tom Slater

Approaching a City into a mournful world of lament at the modern age and its material expression in rampant I’ve always been interested in approaching a big city urbanization. The viewer is left intrigued as to by train; and I can’t exactly describe the sensations. why the artist chose to ignore the millions of But they’re entirely human and perhaps have noth- people involved in such rapid development and ing to do with esthetics [sic]. There is a certain fear bustling ‘progress’—the sea of humanity which and anxiety, and a great visual interest in the things one normally associates with New York. Hop- that one sees coming into the city. (Edward Hopper, per’s New York, as shown in Approaching a quoted in Levin 1995a: 388) City, is a dormant place which people have either abandoned or not yet graced with their The ‘fear and anxiety’ to which Hopper re- presence. When questioned about this recurrent ferred when approaching a city by train were theme of his cityscapes, Hopper replied ‘I don’t explored in another popular composition, Ap- know why [I do this] except that they say that proaching a City (1946, see Figure 4). Hopper I am lonely’ (quoted in Levin 1998: 6). showed a connection to earlier Ash Can Re- The architecture shown in the piece makes a alism when he referred to this work as ‘impro- signiŽcant contribution to this mood—the vised memories pieced together’ (Levin 1995a: buildings are bland in colour, stained with 388), and the painting certainly has the broad, pollution, especially the industrial colossus that wide-angle lens vista of the urban Realist tra- dominates the picture, and the rooms within dition, but what is different from earlier Re- the buildings are devoid of both light and life. alism is the complete absence of a human The rail tracks dive into a tunnel that disap- element to the city. Here is a landscape that pears from view; for Hopper, city life did not was created by humans, but from which they have a light at the end of the tunnel. Instead we are now absent—is Hopper commenting that are left with the impression that approaching a what they created is in fact unliveable and city is all about entering darkness, uncertainty, dehumanizing? The scene is suggestive of iso- a world where human warmth, nature and lation, of emptiness—we are presented with a bleak, deserted cityscape that creates, yet again, emotion are swallowed whole. We are ac- a mood of loneliness. Street life is eliminated by corded a glimpse of blue sky, but the inuence the high wall bordering the rail tracks—again, of nature is shut out by a scene which is we are left wondering and imagining what can dominated by the built environment—the lat- be in the spaces beyond the frame we are ter, as in all of Hopper’s city portraits, defeats viewing. What is it that Hopper has omitted, the painter’s transcendentalist attachment to and why? Part of the appeal of Hopper’s works the former to leave us with a scene that is and, it could be argued, of many negative haunting for both its inhospitability and its representations of the city, is their tendency to plaintive musings on urban life (or lack of it). pose questions which only the viewer can an- Time, like space, is also suspended—nothing is swer. As Hobbs (1987: 70) says with reference approaching the city other than the viewer, and to the artist’s later works, their success ‘de- there is little in this scene that gives grounds for pends on the way viewers are forced to leave optimism or excitement as we approach. The their seats and perform the roles he has scripted eerie silence of the scene, rather, fosters varying for them’. The city is presented as static, await- shades of unease in our approach—tension, ing our attention, everyday life freeze-framed trepidation, tentativeness. Fear of the city 149

Figure 4 Approaching a City. Edward Hopper (1946). Oil on canvas. Reproduced with permission of The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC.

Sunday trayal of an individual bypassed by the opti- mism and opulence of the Jazz Age, someone Figure 5 shows a solitary man in contemplative struggling to make sense of what has happened mood sitting in front of a store. Hunched to him and his business as the world has forward and appearing bored and disconsolate, changed around him. Hopper’s profound sus- it is a forlorn and lonely scene which again picion of modernity is suggested by the nine- deals with themes of emptiness, isolation and teenth-century storefronts—they have become loss. Although the man is shown on Sunday, the walls of a twentieth-century ghost town, his day of rest, the store behind him is empty, and like the man who sits before them, relics of lacking window displays or any other sugges- an age which Hopper preferred, an age of tion that it is ever open for business. We are small, modest businesses and architecture of a left wondering if this is the storeowner, his more human scale. livelihood in tatters, who is living his life in While it could be argued that the painting perpetual Sunday, reecting on his losses and has a ‘small town’ feel, it was in fact based on worrying about what to do next. While the Hopper’s frequent sojourns to the city of painting pre-dates the Depression, it is a por- Hoboken, New Jersey, just across the Hudson 150 Tom Slater

Figure 5 Sunday. Edward Hopper (1926). Oil on canvas. Reproduced with permission of The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC.

River from New York (Levin 1995a: 197). to which he no longer belongs, and the viewer Levin documents that early reactions to Sunday is left almost wanting to console him. It is this were notable for their tendency to describe its side of the painting which tells us much about ‘Americanness’ in both place and subject. Per- Hopper’s unique brand of Realism. The viewer haps this is because the title has universal becomes more involved than in earlier Ameri- signiŽcance, or because the location is can Realism for two reasons. First, the city is unidentiŽable—this could be any city in the completely devoid of any optimism, depressing USA. Most relevant to this discussion, perhaps rather than liberating, lamented rather than the Americanness comes from the depiction of celebrated; and second, city people appear a city street that has come to exclude and emotionally weak and lost in their own melan- alienate one of its residents. The storekeeper is choly thoughts, detached from the world left helpless and idle, exhibiting vulnerability around them in a near-catatonic state. Is this rather than conŽdence by staring into a space man socially isolated because he is suffering Fear of the city 151 from Durhkeim’s condition of anomie? In a inuence, shaping behaviour in the image of a text. study of the New York photographs of Andre (Duncan and Duncan 1988: 120) Kertesz, many of which have a Hopper theme of the individual imprisoned in the modern Some time ago now, James Duncan and Nancy city, David Seamon (1990: 48) follows Heideg- Duncan (1988) argued that the ‘riddle of land- ger’s phenomenology to call this second reason scape’ may be solved by viewing landscapes as ‘presence-to-hand’, or ‘situations where we part of ‘discursive formations’.3 They con- meet the world as an entity separate from us, tended that if we leave landscapes unques- as a thing of concern’. The effect on the viewer tioned, then ‘concrete evidence about how a of one Kertesz photograph entitled Battery society is organized can easily become seen as Park (1948), where two isolated Žgures survey a evidence of how it should, or must be orga- bleak view from a wintry wharf, is as follows: nized’ (1988: 123). For these pioneers in the cultural geography of visual images, the dis- Our attention moves to the solitary man and we courses embedded within landscape representa- sense a mood of melancholy and solitaire. The tion are part of a system of social reproduction bleakness of the weather, the isolated stance of the and regulation, and landscape needs to be re- human Žgures … evoke a feeling of loneliness and read with a sensitivity to discourse if we are to draw us, the beholders, into this emotional sphere, understand and address the social and cultural while at the same time we look on, perhaps relating implications of forms of representation. In this the scene to a similar moment in our own lives or essay I have attempted to reveal and elaborate imagining the inner situation of the man on the the anti-urban discourse embedded within the wharf. (Seamon 1990: 49) cityscapes of Edward Hopper, but have said less about the material effects of this discourse on American society. An appropriate con- While the form and content of the image is, of clusion, then, is to consider how Hopper’s course, different from Hopper’s Sunday, there work might have contributed to the wider an- is much in Seamon’s analysis that is applicable tipathy to cities which can be witnessed in the to an iconography of Hopper’s cityscapes. In USA, and how this antipathy is materialized in Sunday, we certainly imagine the ‘inner situ- a negative approach to urban affairs. ation’ of the man on the boardwalk, how the The quotation that begins this concluding city may have fashioned that situation, and section is particularly useful in thinking about why this man appears to have been left behind Hopper’s legacy. The texts on which his scenes by the optimism of the time. Again, a Hopper were constructed were anti-urban—Jefferson painting provides spaces for imagination, not and the pastoral ideal, Emerson and the tran- least because it is concentrated Hopper— scendentalist imagination, Henry James and lonely, silent, reective, melancholy, empty. the suspicion of modernity, Žlm noir and the city as empty, threatening and dehumanizing. Conclusion Through this intertextual inscription of his ur- ban fears, Hopper offered his viewers spaces As geographers, the textualized behaviour that con- for imagination, ensuring that ‘how they are cerns us is the production of landscapes; how they read’ is usually a sympathetic mixture of yearn- are constructed on the basis of a set of texts, how ing for past times and things lost, and trepi- they are read, and how they act as a mediating dation with which we view the urban arena 152 Tom Slater where his lonely and mournful characters wait affairs. As far back as 1962, White and White for our attention. It is his isolated individuals stated that who ‘act as a mediating inuence’, as the be- holders can identify with and imagine their [t]he fact that our most distinguished intellectuals loneliness, which then ‘shapes our behaviour’. have been on the whole sharply critical of urban life We imagine that this is what the city does to helps explain America’s lethargy in confronting the people—it alienates, excludes, diminishes our massive problems of the contemporary city in a signiŽcance—and thus the city is now feared, rational way. (1962: 200) avoided and viliŽed. Whether it was Hopper’s intention to tap into the anti-urbanism of his Thirty years later, Beauregard (1993) traced the viewers is open to debate, and indeed some- discourse of decline and reached a similar con- thing we may never know, but there can be clusion, arguing that the sheer volume of nega- little doubt that Hopper fed the ‘American tive journalistic and intellectual representations imagination’ (Lyons and Weinberg 1995) with of city life was inhibitive towards a sensible, the anti-urban discourse that can be detected in sustained agenda of tackling America’s urban his art. problems. It is the central argument of this Gregory (1994: 11) deŽnes a discourse as ‘the essay that, through a unique form of urban ways in which we communicate with one an- Realism, Edward Hopper has contributed to other, … that vast network of signs, symbols, the fear of the American city generated by and practices through which we make our other major Žgures before, during and after his world(s) meaningful to ourselves and to oth- time. In a superb exploration of New York’s ers’. Following Habermas, Gregory argues that literary history, Shaun O’Connell (1995) docu- such communications are context bound, ‘em- ments an ambivalent attachment to the city bedded in a particular here and now’ (1994: from the cumulative effect of two kinds of 13), but shows that there has been little to stop writing—those which show the place to be discourses ‘travelling’ and disconnecting from ‘remarkable’ and those which show it to be the social and spatial contexts in which they ‘unspeakable’. There is nothing remarkable emerged. In this paper I have argued that Ed- about Hopper’s New York—looking at ward Hopper made a signiŽcant contribution Nighthawks, unspeakable things may be to the production and dissemination of an anti- around the corner; Approaching a City is all urban discourse, and it needs to be demon- about a journey into unspeakable darkness, strated that this discourse is not just developed where Night Shadows rule and the streets al- in place but something which takes place away ways seem to have the forlorn emptiness of from its context. As Henriques, Holloway, Sunday. Urwin, Venn and Walkerdine (1984: 106) ar- ‘Landscape’, argues Don Mitchell (2000: gue, every discourse is ‘the result of a practice 144), ‘is part of a system of social regulation of production which is at once material, discur- and reproduction because it is always an insep- sive and complex’. The poetics and politics arable admixture of material form and discur- underpinning Hopper’s representations of the sive sign’. The lethargy in addressing urban American city are not conŽned to the image—a affairs identiŽed by White and White (1962) discourse has emerged which informs others of still persists in America, and sustained atten- the American city and the material effect of this tion by cultural geographers to the material discourse is to shape attitudes towards urban effects of discursive practices of signiŽcation is Fear of the city 153 important if we are to demonstrate that urban Cosgrove, D. and Jackson, P. (1987) New directions in representations may not be indicative of an cultural geography, Area 19: 95–101. Davis, M. (1998) Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the external reality, and that landscapes in fact Imagination of Disaster. New York: Vintage. produce and reproduce a ‘reality’ which in- Duncan, J. (1990) The City as Text: The Politics of Land- hibits reform, obscures the positive aspects of scape Interpretation in the Kandyan Kingdom. Cam- urban life, and augments the individual and bridge: Cambridge University Press. institutional fear of the American city. Duncan, J. and Duncan, N. (1988) (Re)reading the land- scape, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 6: 117–126. Gregory, D. (1994) Geographical Imaginations. Oxford: Acknowledgements Blackwell. Gregory, D. (2000) Realism, in Johnston, R.J., Gregory, Many thanks to Leah Andrews and Winifred D., Pratt, G. and Watts, M. (eds) The Dictionary of Human Geography (fourth edition). Oxford: Blackwell, Curran for helpful comments on earlier drafts pp. 673–676. of this paper, and to Loretta Lees, James DeFil- Henriques, J., Holloway, W., Urwin, C., Venn, C. and ippis and Jennifer Hall for suggestions on Žne- Walkerdine, V. (1984) Changing the Subject: Psychology, tuning. Three referees provided some excellent Social Regulation and Subjectivity. London: Methuen. critical feedback, and Rob Kitchin’s advice and Hobbs, R. (1987) Edward Hopper. New York: Harry N. Abrams. encouragement were invaluable. The usual dis- James, H. (1993) [1907] The American scene, in Howard, claimers apply. R. (ed.) Henry James: Collected Travel Writings. New York: Library of America Series, pp. 351–736. Kazin, A. (1983) Fear of the city 1783 to 1983, American Notes Heritage Magazine, February/March 1983: 6–11. Knox, P. (1994) Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban 1 So powerful, in fact, that negative urban images from Geography. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. America serve to legitimate urban reform in Canadian Krutnik, F. (1995) Something more than night: tales of the cities. noir city, in Clarke, D. (ed.) The Cinematic City. Lon- 2 To avoid confusion, Realism in the visual arts will be don: Routledge, pp. 83–99. presented with a capital ‘R’, realism as a philosophy in Lees, L. and Demeritt, D. (1998) Envisioning the livable lower case. city: the interplay of ‘Sin City’ and ‘Sim City’ in Vancou- 3 For a more extensive discussion, see Mitchell (2000: ver’s planning discourse, Urban Geography 19(4): 332– 142–144). 359. Levin, G. (1995a) Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. References Levin, G. (1995b) Edward Hopper: his legacy for artists, in Lyons, D. and Weinberg, A. (eds) Edward Hopper and Abu-Lughod, J. (1999) New York, Chicago, Los Angeles: the American Imagination. New York: W.W. Norton, America’s Global Cities. Minneapolis: University of pp. 109–128. Minnesota Press. Levin, G. (1998) Hopper’s Places (second edition). Berke- Barnes, T. and Duncan, J. (1992) Introduction: writing ley: University of California Press. worlds, in Barnes, T. and Duncan, J. (eds) Writing Lyons, D. (1995) Introduction, in Lyons, D. and Weinberg, Worlds: Discourse, Text and Metaphor in the Represen- A. (eds) Edward Hopper and the American Imagination. tation of Landscape. London: Routledge, pp. 1–17. New York: W.W. Norton, pp. xi–xiv. Beauregard, R. (1993) Voices of Decline: The Post-war Fate Lyons, D. and Weinberg. A. (eds) (1995) Edward Hopper of US Cities. Oxford: Blackwell. and the American Imagination. New York: W.W. Nor- Cloke, P., Philo, C. and Sadler, D. (1991) Approaching ton. Human Geography: An Introduction to Contemporary Mitchell, D. (2000) Cultural Geography: A Critical Intro- Theoretical Debates. London: Paul Chapman. duction. Oxford: Blackwell. 154 Tom Slater

Nochlin, L. (1971) Realism. London: Penguin Books. ographique du peintre. Ceci pre´lude a` une lecture de O’Connell, S. (1995) Remarkable, Unspeakable New York: quatre pie`ces cle´s dans l’œuvre de Hopper, soit A Literary History. Boston: Beacon Press. autant d’exemples e´vocateurs du discours anti-ur- Prendeville, B. (2000) Realism in 20th Century Painting. bain: Night Shadows, Nighthawks, Approaching a London: Thames & Hudson. City et Sunday. Le pouvoir des repre´sentations et la Renner, R. (1990) Edward Hopper 1882–1967: Transforma- popularite´ de l’artiste ont nourri le discours anti-ur- tions of the Real. Hamburg: Benedikt Taschen. baniste—un discours ayant un effet mate´riel sur la Schmied, W. (1995) Edward Hopper: Portraits of America. vie urbaine aux E´tats-Unis. Munich and New York: Prestel. Seamon, D. (1990) Awareness and reunion: a phenomenol- Mots cle´fs: discours, anti-urbanisme, paysage ur- ogy of the person-world relationship as portrayed in the bain, Edward Hopper, representation. New York photographs of Andre Kertesz, in Zonn, L. (ed.) Place Images in Media: Portrayal, Experience and Meaning. Savage, MD: Rowman and LittleŽeld, pp. 31– 61. Temor de la ciudad 1882–1967: Edward Hopper y el Tallack, D. (2000) City sights: mapping and representing discurso del anti-urbanismo New York City, in Balshaw, M. and Kennedy, L. (eds) Urban Space and Representation. London: Pluto Press, Este papel examina hasta que punto algunas de las pp. 25–38. grandes representaciones del paisaje urbano del pin- Thoreau, H.D. (1998) [1854] Walden. Boston: Beacon tor realista estadounidense, Edward Hopper, han Press. contribuido a la produccio´n y la articulacio´n del White, M. and White, L. (1962) The Intellectual Versus the discurso sobre el anti-urbanismo en la cultura de los City: From Thomas Jefferson to Frank Lloyd Wright. Estados Unidos. Despue´s de la informacio´n in- Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. troductoria sobre este discurso, el papel habla del desarrollo del Realismo en el arte estadounidense y de como las representaciones urbanas que salieron respondõ´an a los grandes y ra´pidos cambios que ten´an lugar en las ciudades americanas a principios Abstract translations õ del siglo veinte. He incluido una breve historia biogra´Žca de Edward Hopper para poder explorar Peur de la ville 1882–1967: Edward Hopper et le las inuencias õ´nter textuales detra´s de sus sen- discours anti-urbaniste timientos anti-urbanos y para mejor entender como Cet article mesure en quoi certains des paysages e´stos eran traducidos en la forma tan u´nica del urbains du peintre «re´aliste» ame´ricain Edward Realismo por lo cual Hopper es reconocido. Luego Hopper ont contribue´ a` la production et a` hay interpretaciones de cuatro de las obras claves de l’articulation du discours anti-urbaniste de la culture Hopper que ejempliŽcan el discurso anti-urbano: ame´ricaine. Faisant suite a` un survol introductif de Night Shadows (Sombras Nocturnas), Nighthawks ce discours, l’article examine le de´veloppement du (Gavilanes Nocturnos), Approaching a City (Acercar Re´alisme dans l’art ame´ricain et voit en quoi les una Ciudad) and Sunday (Domingo). Los poderes de repre´sentations urbaines en de´coulant sont des re´- representacio´n y la popularidad del artista han lle- ponses aux changements rapides ayant affecte´ les gado a formar parte del discurso sobre el anti-urban- villes ame´ricaines au de´but du XXe sie`cle. En vue ismo—un discurso que tiene un efecto material sobre d’explorer les inuences intertextuelles derrie`res ces la vida urbana en los Estados Unidos. sentiments anti-urbains et en quoi ceux-ci se traduisent en une forme de Re´alisme qu’on accorde Palabras claves: discurso, anti-urbanismo, paisaje a` Edward Hopper, je fais un court expose´ bi- urbano, Edward Hopper, representacio´n.