Film/Art Noir

Film noir began in the 1930's and remained as a strong cinematic medium until the early 1960's. Film noir literally means "black film"

Nighthawks is perfect example of film noir, a 1942 painting by Edward Hopper that portrays people sitting in a downtown diner late at night. It is considered Hopper's most famous painting, as well as one of the most recognizable in American art.

"Edward Hopper painted American landscapes and cityscapes with a disturbing truth, expressing the world around him as a chilling, alienating, and often vacuous place. Everybody in a Hopper picture appears terribly alone. Hopper soon gained a widespread reputation as the artist who gave visual form to the loneliness and boredom of life in the big city. This was something new in art, perhaps an expression of the sense of human hopelessness that characterized the Great Depression of the 1930s."