Conference at Night

                                    
Pictured above is Edward Hopper's Conference at Night, an oil on canvas painted in 1949. While Hopper depicts typically mundane scenes, there is something incredibly intriguing about his work. Major themes in Hopper's portfolio include loneliness and alienation, as the perspective he often employs is that of a voyeur, or an individual watching someone in private. Artists have used voyeurism before to draw attention such as Vermeer, however voyeurism is especially useful in film as popularized by directors such as Alfred Hitchcock and Michelangelo Antonioni. This theme of loneliness also speaks to a certain sense of existentialism within his art, while Hopper has clear subjects in his pieces he is simultaneously depicting nothing being that the scenes he depicts arrest particularly significant. Hopper is able to catch a "slice of life" within his work, so much so that one could view his painting and immediately imagine the next scene, if there were to be one. Hopper's work feels ahead of its time and I think this contributes to his influence on later cinema.