Hopper’s Windows: Viewing Art through a Voyeuristic Lens
- Geoffrey Low Thue
- May 31
- 3 min read
Imagine this: You come back from a long and stressful day of work, strip down to take a shower, and just as you were coming out to watch some tv shows to cope, you notice that your neighbour has been peering through your window, watching your every move while still left bare in your underwear. How would you feel? Vulnerable and violated I would assume right? Well, Edward Hopper took advantage of this phenomenon of voyeurism, the sexual gratification of observing other people engaged in intimate behaviours, and turned it into a profound artistic statement. Depicting the effects of the industrial movement through the modernist lens, he creates a unique visual language that would influence generations of artists and filmmakers.
Hopper’s Motif of Voyeurism
To understand Hopper’s artistic intention with his use of a voyeuristic lens, we must understand the reason he chose to paint in this perspective in the first place. Apart from Hopper’s specialised experimentations with perspective early in his career, situated in the midst of the industrial revolution, Hopper’s paintings were heavily influenced by the dissatisfaction among the societal pressure on women who desired more fulfilling lives and opportunities beyond the domestic sphere.
While most New York artists were painting abstract expressionist paintings, Hopper finds beauty in letting viewers explore the mundane everyday scenes inside the private lives of the subjects to depict the unnoticed depression and stress that comes along with the rapidly developing environment. Thus, his signature style of the voyeuristic lens through motifs such as mirrors and windows was born.
The Psychology behind Hopper's Windows
To depict human connection and isolation, Hopper often utilises windows to create a separation between the real world and the subjects. Let's take “Morning Sun” for an example. In the piece, we can see that a woman is alone sitting on a bed in an empty room while looking out a window. Physically, windows are a literal separation between the inside and the outside which creates a sense of loneliness and the subject is cut off from the outside world. However emotionally, it can create an emotional distance between her and the others; while she physically exists in the perimeters of this realm, she is mentally detached from society and lost in her own thoughts.
Windows and Mirrors as Voyeuristic Lenses
Apart from the typical private settings adopted within the painting such as bedrooms to insinuate a sense of intrusion through the invaded private space, Hopper signifies this effect by incorporating windows between the viewer and the subject. In his painting “Cape Cod Morning”, a woman can be seen peering out the window of her house, yet the perspective of this painting is positioned where the viewers do not make any eye contact while peering through a side window only. This allows Hopper to create the feeling that the viewers are nothing but helpless observers in the subject's world as positioned at an angle where no connection is made with the subject. Ultimately, the use of the motif of a window to insinuate the voyeuristic lens allows Hopper to reflect both the subject's isolation and our own sense of separation from others.
Despite his paintings supposedly targeting the viewers from the 1950’s, inspiring filmmakers such as Todd Haynes in his movie "Safe" (1995) to explore the sense of alienation and confinement that Hopper's work evokes; His idea of separation through “looking through a window” still resonates in modern art depicting the phenomena of physical isolation with the incorporation of digital communication devices, inspiring many artists despite the change in social context.
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