Edward Hopper: Compartment Car

Edward Hopper took an interest in cars and trains. The artist was drawn to the introspective mood that travelling seems to put us into. He captured the atmosphere in half-empty carriages making their way across a landscape: the silence that reigns inside while the wheels beat in rhythm against the rails outside, the dreaminess fostered by the noise and the view from the windows – a dreaminess in which we seem to stand outside our normal selves and have access to thoughts and memories that may not emerge in more settled circumstances.

The woman in Hopper’s Compartment Car seems in such a frame of mind, reading her book and shifting her gaze between the carriage and the view.

Edward Hopper
Compartment C, Car 293 1938
Oil on canvas
50 x 45 cm