Edward Hopper and Ernest Hemingway: Problem of Creative Connections

Abstract

This paper focuses on revealing connections between the creative work of two representatives of the US realism of the early 20th c.: the painter Edward Hopper (1882–1967) and the literary artist Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961). This problem has received studied, only if superficially. Yet Hopper and Hemingway were “key” personalities of the epoch which built them: both of the artists were expatriates, absorbed experience of “European” aesthetic trends, witnessed two world wars; that led to the existentialism concepts becoming central ideas in their creative work. Being self-made men, Hopper and Hemingway went through a similar path of personal growth, were recognized in the 1920s when their artistic style developed; the artists were devoted to it despite domination of different movements in art. Regardless of difference between the artists’ “temperament”, the form of their works is mostly similar in the application of realistic method, influence of impressionist and modernist trends, the desire for simplicity, as well as the focus on light and darkness. The pictorial and thematic affinity of Hopper's and Hemingway's several works is so great that a direct mutual influence between the artists seems very likely.