Three customers and a barman populate an otherwise empty New York diner in the dead of the night. Painted by Edward Hopper in 1942, this painting is eerily silent. The garish floor with the dim lights of teh diner’s interior spill out onto the empty street corner. The windows in the building opposite exhibit no signs of life. The only symbols of life during the day are a signle cash register sitting in the window. The countertops of the diner are bare apart from a few cups, napkins holders, and salt & peper shakers. Behind the barman, two coffee urns echo the stiffness of the silent seated figures. A single man sits facing away from the viewer whose identity is a mystery. Accross from him, a man and a woman sit side by side. The man stares blankly ahead as if he is no longer aware of the cigarette in his hand. His hooked nose is set to be the reason for the paintings title, Nighthawks. The woman beside him, who was modelled after Hopper’s wife, looks faintly as the sandwich she holds in her hand. As for their relationship, we can only speculate as they are sitting next to each other but barely acknowledging eachothers precense. The man’s right arm and the woman’s left arm both fold on the countertop forming a unified shape but not touching. This painting was executed in the height of World War II and only a few weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. This painting has been read as a portrayal of war times, anxiety, and separation in a large city. Despite the figures are all in the space, there are silent distances between all four. However, the view of the diner makes it seem like there is a fifth person in this painting, the viewer. Perhaps we are crossing the street heading towards the diner, or perhaps we are simply observing from afar. Either way, we feel the imense separation between the figures in the diner and us. We become the most separated figure in this painting and the large windows allow us to see but not hear any conversations amplifying the silence we feel. There is also no door visible on the diner making us feel even more separated and frozen in the scene.
