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:
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| 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.
Thanks for this fascinating essay. Some thoughts from Robert Hughes’ brief essay on Hopper in 'Nothing If Not Critical':
ReplyDelete”… to inventory Hopper’s presumed sources does not explain the quality of his paintings or their grip on the viewer. In part, these come from his sense of place and his unsparing, discreet eye for the truth of a scene.”,
and later on this,
“…his great city images such as Nighthawks, 1942, are by now as solid a fixture of the American imagination as the novels of Raymond Chandler. Hopper’s European contemporaries, especially in Weimar Germany, had also dealt with this theme - the city as condenser of loneliness. But none of them did it with the same etiquette of felling.”
But earlier, this quote from Hopper himself,
“”The thing that makes me so mad is the ‘American Scene’ business,” Hopper told an interviewer in 1964. “I never tried to do the American scene as Benton and Curry and the Midwestern painters did. I think the American Scene painters caricatured America. I always wanted to do myself.””
The sense I get from Hughes’ essay was that Hopper had a unique sensitivity that cut through caricatures and stereotypical thinking, which was coupled with masterful painting skills that allowed him to communicate what he saw and felt in a now obviously powerful manner. Are there any model railroaders who have the observational sensitivity, modelling skills, and narrative imagination to do the same? Do any care, or has ‘operation’ conquered all?
Where I typed 'felling' I should have entered 'feeling' - that's what typing comments before coffee does :-)
DeleteCaricature is a powerful temptation. The danger with making a model that provokes a higher emotional response than simply "awesome" or "cool" is alienation from the broad majority of modelers. Not that people aren't capable of feeling a mood, but that so many view this hobby as a light-hearted escape from reality, or to a rose-colored reality from a different era.
DeleteI do believe there are modelers who have the skill, observational sensitivity and narrative imagination, but I suspect they're sidelined by the mainstream press or not given very many 'likes' on social media.
However, in military diorama circles I suspect you'll find these characteristics in spades. There, evoking an emotional response or inviting narrative imagination is pursued passionately. Perhaps the subject matter lends itself more easily to a broader range of feelings, what with the complexity of warfare and ethical questions it raises. But railroading is no less ripe for the picking if we look for drama, or sadness, or a sense of quiet contemplation, etc.
didn't Alexander Models manufacture a similar house towards the early/ mid - sixties?
ReplyDeleteYes - the "Haunted House". Similar, but not as ornamented as Hopper's original. Still, a nice looking old place.
DeleteI'm Earl's son, and I just happened to come across this article today searching for something else and it kind of blew my mind. To me, that house was always special - as a kid, I thought of it as the 'Psycho' house, but for some reason the style, the car parked out front and Mr. Farnsworth on his porch always intrigued me. I also love Edward Hopper's art and now I wonder whether it's because of this model my dad created. As an aside, I remember a conversation I had with dad once about Hopper's "Nighthawks" painting - ever the realist, he pointed out that the window of that diner would have physically impossible to create in real life due to its size. I miss him.
ReplyDeleteI'm just tickled that you stumbled onto my blog and even more so that you took the time to leave such a nice comment. As an amateur historian of the hobby, this sort of story is what brings it to life for me. Perhaps the connection between Hopper's art and your Dad's (and others') modeling is the ability it has to ignite our imaginations. Hopper left plenty of room in his paintings for the viewer to fill in the gaps and enter the world he created; so many great model railroads do the same. Your Dad was a master at world-building and the M&MM was a fascinating setting. If you'd be willing, I'd love to chat sometime about his modeling. Feel free to contact me directly at ggallimore at juno dot com.
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