Edward Hopper. 1882-1967. ‘Office In A Small City’. 1953. Oil on Canvas 71 x 101 cms.
metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/488730

Edward Hopper, the ‘New Realist’ painter of American life from the 1920s to the 1960s, painted many portraits, mostly of anonymous US citizens in domestic, work and communal locations.

Picasso’s self-portrait of 1901 does not convey his state of mind through the context of an observable environment in which he stands.

Hopper, on the other hand, is the master of conveying the psychological interior life of his subjects (albeit anonymous subjects) by constructing an environment in which they sit, stand or work.

‘Office in a Small City’ of 1953 is as much the representation of an environment as it is the mood of an office worker, and the two are inextricably linked. Hopper shows us a middle-aged man, about five levels up, facing his office window and across the rooftops opposite, a perfect blue sky.

Psychological intensity is created by the sky which the man faces. And because the plate glass windows surrounding him are so big the sun bathes him in its warm glow.

The glass windows themselves are not there in painted terms, we the viewer imagine the glass panes. This absence seems to make him even closer to the outer world beyond his office.

He is not intent on the workload on his desk but lost in thought. He is jammed into the narrow space between his table and the one behind him. If he stood up and out of his chair, there’s not much room to move. His work table is far wider than his personal physical space. He spends his working day in an ergonomically efficient zone where rental floor space is the priority. This is not the boss’s office.

Hopper has composed the portrayal of physical confinement and the monotony of a long day at the office. He has then juxtaposed this interior with the allure of a cloudless, warm, endless space.

The man is seen in profile and not looking at us, the viewer. Maybe he’s confident that the boss can’t see him either. His mind is beyond the rooftops into a beautiful blue yonder. His shirt sleeves are rolled up, but he’s not a manual labourer. He’s warmed by the sun’s rays.

The painting creates a potential for ambiguity in us, the viewer, about what’s going on in the mind of the man who is most clearly not concentrating on his work. And it’s the blue sky which seems to be the key to this ambiguity. How could we possibly know what he’s thinking? But the beauty of that particular sky seems to indicate that he’s not in the building mentally anymore, but far away in his imagination.

It’s a picture of the gap between where the man actually is and where his imagination has taken him. Maybe it’s a metaphor for the American Dream, and in his middle age, the realisation it won’t happen for him? Maybe he’s looking forward to going home to his loving family for their evening meal together, and he’s thinking about what the food might be? The title of the painting tells us that he’s in a small city; maybe he’d had hopes of a life with the drama and excitement of a big city?

The sheer beauty of that cloudless sky gives a certain longing to the whole picture. Whatever that longing’s for, it’s not where he is.

It’s that serene blue that gives the office worker’s daydream a sad potency. Many people would prefer to be somewhere else most of the time. That particular blue in juxtaposition with a restrictive workstation just gives the whole canvas its psychological depth.

Hopper has done what he’s known for, portraying a solitary figure physically and emotionally alienated from his immediate surroundings and lost in thought.

Rene Magritte 1898-1967. ‘L’Avenir des Statues’ The Future of Statues 1937.
Oil on Plaster, 33×16.5x20cms.
www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/magritte-the-future-of-statues-t03258

Rene Magritte, the Belgian painter, is best known for demonstrating the implicit unreality of representational figurative paintings.

His most famous work ‘La Trahison des Images’ (Ceci N’est Pas une Pipe), translates into English as ‘The Treachery of Images’ (This is Not a Pipe). Painted in 1929 and measuring 60 X 80cms, it is a painting of a pipe, and only a pipe, with the words ‘this is not a pipe’ painted underneath the image on the same canvas. The words under the image assert the truth. The viewer is looking at a painted image of a pipe, not a real one. If it was a real one it would be around 70cms long. ‘Treachery’ is a strong word to use in the title and points at hidden dangers and deceit.

His painted plaster object ‘The Future of Statues’, 1937 shows the head and neck of a man – a sculpted bust, with his eyes closed and completely enveloped by a lovely blue sky with fluffy cotton wool clouds floating by.

One could be forgiven for thinking that the man is in a dreamy reverie.

In fact, the object is a plaster cast taken from Napoleon Bonaparte’s death mask which Magritte has painted over.

Napoleon, Emperor of France in the early 1800s and conqueror of much of continental Europe, was a brilliant military strategist. But after being defeated in Belgium at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 his ambitions for more conquests, land, and power were terminated. He was exiled by the British victors to the Island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died of gastric cancer in 1821.

Of his art in general, Magritte is quoted as having said, ‘’My painting is visible images which conceal nothing; they evoke mystery and indeed when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question, ‘what does it mean?’ It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable’’.

While we cannot know what happens after death – the ultimate and mysterious rite of passage, I would hazard a guess that the ‘The Future of Statues’ itself, refers to the Vanitas tradition of European art. That tradition, mainly in Northern Europe after the Protestant Reformation, reminds the viewer with symbols of wilting flowers, skulls, timepieces, mirrors, butterflies and the like of the uncertainty and transience of life. They are still life paintings with a moral warning. They warn against vanity, the pursuit of wealth and earthly power because all of it will inevitably come to an end.

Napoleon’s ambition and death in exile aged 51 certainly was a case in point.

Katharina Fritsch b.1956 ‘Hahn’ (Cockerel) 2013. Painted fibreglass. 470cms H
https://art-sheep.com/art-sheep-features-katharina-fritsch-2/

In 2013, Katharina Fritsch, the German sculptor, unveiled her 4.7-metre-high statue ‘Hahn’ (Cockerel) on the vacant fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, London. It was installed for 18 months. Painted in one overall colour, ultramarine blue, it was humorous, satirical and combative.

It employed the classic Dada strategy of incongruous juxtaposition. It is the strategy employed by Magritte in ‘The Future of Statues’. And ‘Cockerel’ is a painted sculpture deploying the same idea of provocative juxtaposition. Fritsch installs a French symbol (at the invitation of the selection committee who were fully aware of the symbolism) in a London Square commemorating Horatio Lord Nelson.

‘Hahn’ 2013 with its intense ultramarine plumage challenged the stone greyness and black bronzes dotted around the square. It stood out.

The three statues on plinths in each of the other corners of Trafalgar Square are General Sir Charles James Napier, Major General Sir Henry Havelock and King George IV.

The site at Trafalgar Square commemorates Horatio Lord Nelson’s victory over of the combined French and Spanish naval fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. The defeat effectively ended Napoleon’s ambitions to invade Britain. Nelson lost his life in the battle.

Nelson’s Column is the focal point of the square and a symbol of historic British naval power. Nelson continues to be a hero in the British psyche.

In spite of Fritsch’s declaration that she knew nothing about the historical origins of Trafalgar Square, it is difficult not to see the satire in her statue.

She joked at the time that maybe Napoleon had returned as a blue cockerel.

It pokes fun at the traditional statuary of masculine power. Colour is what transforms her sculpture from a naturalistic ornament into a symbol. Of the use of colour on her sculptures she says, ‘’It evens it out, makes it abstract – like a visual sign, an icon. That is important: my work is always on the borderline between a detailed sculpture and a sign’’.

The French football and rugby teams wear blue shirts with a cockerel on the breast. The colour and image of this particular bird is definitively an emblem of French masculinity.

The selection committee commissioning ‘Hahn’ 2013 for the empty fourth plinth wrote in their press release, ‘’The cockerel is a symbol for regeneration, awakening and strength……finally and ironically the work refers in an ironic way to male-defined British society and thoughts about biological determinism’’. Arguably it is referring to many societies, not just Britain.

There is further ironic humour in the cockerel’s comb – the flap of skin on top of its head, and its similarity to the linear nature of Lord Nelson’s bicorn hat.

Fritsch herself describes ‘Hahn’ 2013 as ‘’a feminist sculpture since it is I who am doing something active here – I, a woman, am depicting something male.

Fritsch’s joke about Napoleon brings to mind Magritte’s ‘The Future of Statues’ and his death mask.

Ultramarine blue is being harnessed to challenge the status quo and brings into focus the life of public statues, and their potential to become anachronistic with the passage of time.