Reflections on art and architecture by TIME critic Richard Lacayo.

Deja Vu Some More: Hopper Department

While making my way through the catalogue for the Edward Hopper show at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts I came across a reproduction of this Caillebotte in Judith Barter's essay on Hopper's Nighthawks

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Paris Street, Rainy Day, 1877/Gustave Caillebotte — The Art Institute of Chicago

Barter cites the Caillebotte to contrast the position of the viewer — that means you — in that painting and in Nighthawks. But what struck me for the first time was that the structure of Caillebotte's famous canvas — a vertical divide with plunging space on the left side and a foregrounded figure on the right — may have been appropriated by Hopper for one of his own best known works.

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New York Movie, 1939/Edward Hopper — The Museum of Modern Art

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