Nighthawks

This is a wide oil painting, about one and a half metres across, showing an all-night diner seen from the street. The glass wraps around the corner of the building, so we look straight in at the brightly lit counter. Three customers sit at the counter, and a server stands opposite them. The light inside glows against the dark, empty street outside. Everything feels still and quiet. Nobody seems to be talking. Each person appears lost in thought, and the whole scene has a calm, puzzling mood.

Look closely at the diner and you will notice how little is there. Search the glass for a door. The material tells us there is no entrance to the establishment, so we cannot tell how anyone got in or how they might leave. Now look at the street in the foreground. There is no debris on it, no litter, nothing out of place. Finally, look at the people along the counter. Each seems disengaged from the others, as if they share a room but not a conversation.

Edward Hopper, an American artist who lived from 1882 to 1967, painted Nighthawks in 1942. He was inspired by a restaurant he had seen on Greenwich Avenue in New York. But the painting is not a realistic copy of that or any actual place. Hopper organized the composition tightly and kept the details spare. He used simple geometric shapes, and he made the glow of the diner's electric lighting a central part of the picture.

Hopper later recalled that, unconsciously, probably, he was painting the loneliness of a large city. Yet the scene is not harsh. The museum describes it as serene and beautiful, but also enigmatic, meaning hard to explain. We are never told who these people are or how they are connected. That leaves us to wonder about them and their imagined world. Take a moment to look at the three customers and the server again, and decide what you think each one is thinking.