Hopper's Narrative Influence

Careful viewers will note that the three images in the preceding blog post were all works by Edward Hopper.  Hopper (1882-1967) was an American artist known for his realistic scenes of ordinary life.  According to Wikipedia he "created subdued drama out of commonplace subjects layered with a poetic meaning, inviting narrative interpretations".  Sounds good to me, especially that last bit about inviting narrative interpretations.  I believe strongly that art and story are two sides of a coin.  The best art, like great model railroads, tells a story or sometimes raises questions in the viewers mind that lead to a "narrative interpretation".  

A quick search of the Model Railroader archive will reveal a few brief mentions of Edward Hopper.  Most notable is an article by John Armstrong in which he recreates, in model form, the scene depicted in Hopper's painting "The Nighthawks".  To honor Armstrong a painting was made by railroad artist Ted Rose which included the grand old master himself standing trackside next to a Canandaigua Southern steam engine with the Nighthawks scene in the background.  Think about it; a fictional scene from a famous painting recreated on a freelanced model railroad, finally depicted full circle in a painting.  Narrative indeed.

But perhaps lesser known - because it is entirely my speculation - is this scene, shown on Earl Smallshaw's Middletown and Mystic Mines railroad:

Now, I can't prove it, primarily because Smallshaw has gone on to that great roundhouse in the sky, but I suspect what we're looking at is a nod to this painting:

House by the Railroad, Edward Hopper, 1925

Hopper's painting, indeed many of his railroad paintings, were made in the first quarter of the twentieth century, the time frame of Smallshaw's M&MM.  Note the use of negative space in both images to highlight the subject and draw its contours into sharp relief.  On the Middletown & Mystic Mines this house was the home of Fenton Farnsworth, founder of the M&MM.  As the story goes, he would often step out onto his porch to watch the 8:25 doodlebug go by.  According to the photo's caption in the May 1982 Model Railroader, "Just before his retirement he had this quaint Victorian home built on a knoll and as close to the right-of-way as possible so he could keep an eye on his creation."  Narrative.  Art inspires a story.  

Smallshaw's model, by the way, was a Classic Miniatures Leadville House.  Not an exact match to the house in Hopper's painting but it captures the spirit.  Neither is the supposed real-life inspiration for the painting a match, attributed to a home in New York which also only vaguely looks like the house in Hopper's painting.  But here's yet a third house with a connection (so I'm led to believe) to Hopper's "House by the Railroad":

I selected this one from the many views available on the internet because of the lighting which so closely matches Hopper's work.  Hitchcock reportedly liked the look of Hopper's painting and was inspired to create the Bates Mansion for his film "Psycho".  Supposedly.  But such supposition is part of the fun of "narrative interpretation" isn't it?  Sometimes not knowing is more interesting.

As I've built structures for dioramas over the last two years (see nmrbo22 and nmrbo23 tags for more) I've enjoyed creating narratives around each.  How old are these buildings?  Who might live there?  How can the structure itself tell the story?  What clues can I give the viewer to help discover that narrative?  In the case of Smallshaw's and Hitchcock's Victorian structures we're provided a narrative and given a larger context in which that story is placed.  

But Hopper's masterpiece has no such context beyond the railroad tracks in the foreground.  The structure itself offers no clues beyond an approximate age based on architectural details and the date of Hopper's painting, 1925.   Art critics can and do speculate about the narrative, but they have no more corner on that market than you or I when it comes to imagination.  Perhaps the best we can do is to be inspired enough to recreate our own House by the Railroad and maybe even invite our viewers to cast their own narrative interpretations.

Negative Space and Parade Routes

Railroad Train by Edward Hopper, 1908

When I was reading the July 2023 edition of Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine I came across this statement in Joe Fugate's editorial:

 "Negative space is basically the so-called 'boring stuff' that has little to do with the railroad.  It's the stuff that typically gets thrown out when we selectively compress a railroad route into a layout track plan.  Rather than add something else 'railroady' to the layout, a 'negative space scene' takes space away from the railroady part per se hence the term 'negative' space."

No.  That's not what it means at all.

From wikipedia: "In art and design, negative space is the empty space around and between the subject(s) of an image.^[1] Negative space may be most evident when the space around a subject, not the subject itself, forms an interesting or artistically relevant shape, and such space occasionally is used to artistic effect as the "real" subject of an image" 

Furthermore, "Elements of an image that distract from the intended subject, or in the case of photography, objects in the same focal plane, are not considered negative space. Negative space may be used to depict a subject in a chosen medium by showing everything around the subject, but not the subject itself. Use of negative space will produce a silhouette of the subject. Most often, negative space is used as a neutral or contrasting background to draw attention to the main subject, which then is referred to as the positive space."

The "boring stuff" in between our "railroady scenes" is NOT negative space.

To be fair, I get what he's trying to say.  In the editorial he continues to elaborate on what he thinks negative space means for modelers and while he's totally misusing the term, he's still pointing to a concept I endorse.  Our model railroads have to strike a balance between the "railroady" and "non-railroady" scenes we see in the real world.  Most model railroads are heavy on the stations, yards, industries, and signature scenic effects like tunnels and bridges because these are often considered the most interesting elements.  

But in the real world there are, for example, suburbs, non-railroad-served industries, and miles and miles of nature alongside the tracks.  The problem is that the "empty" scenes in between aren't really empty.  While it would be tempting to call a plain, simple scene between more interesting scenes "negative space", a better term for these scenes would be, simply put, ordinary scenes.  The world is full of them and, as Joe rightly points out in his editorial, these often get cut from our model railroads as we selectively compress the world.

House by the Railroad by Edward Hopper 1925

But to say such an ordinary scene is "boring" is an opinion.  Real railroads run through a variety of settings and it is up to the modeler to determine what is interesting enough to be included in the limited space we all have.  It is the operations-fixated focus of the mainstream modeling community that drives this false dichotomy between what is interesting (railroady) and what is boring (the rest of the stuff).

Let me present an idea that might serve to recapture a more positive and balanced perspective on those "boring" scenes - the Parade Route or Paradestrecke in German.  I mention the German translation because that's where I see this concept at work the most, whether on FREMO layouts or home railroads.  When possible, it is desirable to include a stretch of railroad on which trains can get up and go, run hard, stretch their legs, etc.  This is that place we all know and love, standing trackside where the power of a train can be viscerally felt as it thunders by.  

A parade route can include a featured element such as a trestle or even structures, but the primary focus is on the train.  A viewer might look at the scene and enjoy the scenery the way a person would view and enjoy a landscape painting, and it might evoke feelings of peace, tranquility, or mild interest.  But the real interest occurs when the train enters the scene.  This is the place to let that freight creep by so the viewer can admire those detailed cars you spent so much time weathering, or to send that limited express screaming by at 70 per, drivers flashing.

Railroad Sunset by Edward Hopper, 1929

The American modeling culture used to include these ideas, in part.  A classic track plan was the 'out-and-back'.  This provided a visible yard for either storing trains or possibly switching cars and a mainline loop, usually folded and twisted over itself for a longer run but with a reversing section allowing a train to return to the yard from whence it departed.  In effect, the main line was the parade route.  These plans were often accompanied by such text as "let 'em roll on the main while you switch the yard" or some similar admonishment.  Sounds like two kinds of fun at the same time.

Admittedly, those early track plans allowing for trains to just run laps were dependent on, and for the benefit of, companies that sold an ever-increasing selection of locomotives and rolling stock.  The cure for "boredom" on such a pike was to (purchase, build and) run a variety of trains, not necessarily to operate them prototypically.  But once we began heading down the path towards prototype fidelity and operation it seemed the parade routes began to wither, literally shrinking in favor of squeezing in more sidings or more closely modeling a prototype track arrangement and squeezing out "ordinary" scenery.

Long before the prototype operators gained dominance in the hobby Frank Ellison et al found a way to have your cake and eat it too, including both parade routes - though he likely didn't use that term - and serious operation that mimicked the real railroads.  John Allen did the same, as did so many of his contemporaries.  Creating a section of the railroad exclusively for watching the train travel through beautiful scenery was often as important as spotting freight cars or making station stops on time.

But today such ideas are pooh-poohed to the point that magazine editors have to write editorials encouraging folks to consider "negative space" in their operations-oriented railroads.  Perhaps these old ideas will become new again.  Today's non-hobbyist public that attend train shows generally see trains - both model and prototype - as railfans, not operators.  In the real world trains travel through ordinary scenes.  Most North American modular layouts aren't created for operating, but rather favor long trains running through ordinary scenes.

Ordinary scenes are not negative space.  

Boring is in the eye of the beholder.

Details and Story Telling - NMRBO23

While this year's diorama for the National Model Railroad Build Off was designed with a broader picture and clear 'front' view in mind, there was still great emphasis placed on detailed scenes that contribute to the overall story.  That narrative is one of leisure in the "winter paradise" that was Florida of the 1920s, when tourists flocked to the state to escape the cold snowy north and play in the sun.  Of course there were residents there too and they found ways to relax and enjoy the day.  Below are some close-ups of scenes that tell the story:

Most of this year's figures were already painted, including the garden gnomes - accurate for the 1920s, actually - but I did paint a few figures and details.  I also built three vehicles, two from Jordan Miniatures and one from Sylvan, confusingly a 'Jordan' roadster.  I'm most pleased with finding a new job for Ma Spumoni; instead of hanging laundry she's picking oranges.  The fellow in the rowboat was originally going to be fishing.  Before that the rowboat was going to be a scratchbuilt steam launch or pleasure craft such as would be seen at that time.  But time ran out for adding more, and space got compressed at the waterfront so the steam launch was replaced with the rowboat, a metal casting.  The man snoozing in the boat was marketed as a 'hobo' but in this case he's just a fellow out relaxing on the water...for the moment.

Diorama Design and Composition - NMRBO23

 

 

Click on the image above or open in a new tab to see a really large version.

The top-down image above offer a good view of the overall layout of this year's National Model Railroad Build Off diorama.  The main idea driving the design is the flow across the scene from side to side, primarily left to right, interrupted by elements that break that flow.  Elements that run from one short side to the other are the lakefront, the track and the road.  Elements that interrupt that motion are the bends in the road, the stream and bridges crossing it, and the trees.  The houses and larger trees at the back of the scene are adjacent to or behind these longer, sweeping elements, and are almost interesting background features in and of themselves.  More on them in a moment.

Let's start with the water.  Since Woodland Scenics Deep Pour Murky water and a plate girder bridge were two required elements in the product bundle, it made sense to make them primary features in the design.  I placed the bridge front and center with the water making a V towards the bridge.  The small 'surface rocks', also required, point along that V toward the bridge.  (Another line of surface rocks points toward the concrete arched bridge, but it is secondary to the railroad bridge and serves another compositional purpose).

The last required element in the product bundle was "Aunt Lucy's House", a two-story wood house kit by Walthers, (nee Faller).  This structure might get its own blog post, as there's much to talk about there, but the topic for this post is about how to use the design of the diorama to highlight the required elements.  To draw the eye to Aunt Lucy's house I put a bend in the road and placed the big white house at the end of it.  I then put parallel elements in front of it which reinforce its location, connecting the street to the track to the fence to the driveway and finally the roof of the house; there's even a line of surface rocks between the track and the fence.  See the blue lines in this image below:

Note also how the other house on the left relates to the curving road, track and lakeside over against the strong parallel lines at the farmhouse.  In "reality" the home would have been the last thing built - the lake being there first, the track coming next, the road after that, and then the house.  But for the purposes of the design composition it is the most eye-catching large element on that side of the diorama, and the shape of the elements in front serve to reinforce its location.

As I implied in last year's analysis of my diorama entry from 2022, balance is important.  The weight of things influences how the viewer sees the scene.  So far the discussion has focused on a top-down view, but this year I added more vertical gradients to the diorama.  The lowest elevation is the lakefront and stream, and the highest the ground level under the mission-style bungalow on the left.  However the tallest structure is still the white farmhouse.  The paved road is the only leading line that changes elevation; it is above the track on the left, level at the crossing, then below it on the right.

Finally the trees play an important composition role.  There is one more (broken) horizontal line on the diorama - the trees across the back.  I had originally planned to include a printed backdrop but decided late in the construction to omit it.  I had even considered using a small mirror to give the illusion that the stream extended back further into the distance but disguising it with a tunnel of trees would have changed the overall feel and balance of the diorama, putting too much weight in the center instead of out front on the bridge.  

I firmly believe that nature, whenever appropriate, should dominate our modeled environments.  Big trees should be big, maintaining the relationship to other structures, trains, people, etc. as they do in reality.  My Bald Cypress trees are 60-70 feet high; this is about average for this species, but still tall enough to cast a long shadow over their surroundings as a model.  

The palm trees dotted throughout are mainly there to set the locale but also serve as punctuation marks, places to interrupt the flow and keep the eye in the scene a bit longer.  As painter Ian Roberts notes, strong lines across a composition tend to take the viewer outside the scene, so elements that keep the viewer in the scene need to be placed to do just that.  It would be easy to follow the paved road right off the right side of the diorama, but that big Cypress says "Stop!" and keeps your eye at the lakeside "beach".

Thanks for keeping your eye on this longer blog post.  I hope these thoughts inspire you to consider design and composition in your modeled worlds.