If you divide the painting in the vertical plane, you get two halves one with light, the other with darkness. Perhaps this is where the cafe is as well? Who knows, but it is an interesting reference that people often miss. That building is very similar to the building in the painting Early Sunday Morning painted in 1930. Look at the red and green buildings on the other side of the road. While we cannot say where this cafe is, we can see an easter egg.

The advertisement of Phillies cigar is real as the brand does exist. Hopper made this cafe by referencing different cafes. The geographical location is something that cannot be determined.

All the other buildings that can be seen from the vantage point are closed. There is darkness everywhere except for the cafe. The temporal location of the painting can be estimated to be late-night, somewhere past midnight. We stand there, near the cafe with a warm fluorescent light. This gives us a sense of vastness and the darkness with it. There is no light coming from the front or the back of the road the viewers are standing on. The road that goes towards the right blends in with the darkness. It is the perspective that gives the painting an “unending” illusion. The vantage point for the viewers is in the darkness, away from the place where the cafe’s light seeps in. But this is a different type of loneliness. That emotion brilliantly comes out of this painting, but we see it regularly in Hopper’s other creations. But there is another emotion hidden in most of his paintings that makes viewers stare at them. Hopper found a unique beauty in the “hideous” buildings of the city. Not just that, even the serving table resembles the architecture of the cafe, matching the outlines of its structure. Notice how the curb runs parallel to the edge of the cafe? Not just that, but the seats are all placed parallel to the outlines of the cafe. While the buildings are bland in their architecture, why does everything look so clean? It is the symmetry that adds beauty to it. Although the colors in this painting are subdued to show the shower of night, one can clearly see the use of fluorescent tinge in the greens and reds and yellows. Hopper in most of his paintings that involved human subjects used eye-searing, garish color combination. While lines are one part of the equation, the second part is the use of color. This adds a beautiful symmetry to the depiction of bland, minimalist buildings the harsh architecture of a concrete jungle. One of the reasons why Hopper’s paintings stand out and catch our attention is because of the use of straight lines running parallel as well as intersecting each other. This analysis, like all other analyses, is not an analysis of the painter’s intentions and thoughts while making the painting but what the viewer (me in this case) feels that the painting is trying to convey. Analyzing Hopper’s masterpiece is even more difficult. And this brilliant structure and composition of the painting enable the viewers not just to see, but hear the painting as well.Īnalyzing the painting is a difficult task. A cafe in the middle of a crossing, in the middle of the night with just four inhabitants, all together yet separated. If you were to make a list of all the most famous paintings, there’s a fair chance that the Nighthawks painting by Edward Hopper would be on the list.

Nighthawks by edward hopper