The Essential Edward Hopper

The great American realist Edward Hopper filled his canvases with sinister houses and blank-eyed humans, with otherworldly lighting and naked women in motel rooms, theater dancers, movie usherettes and people waiting in lobbies. Hopper's people inhabit an eerie, silent world that hypnotizes viewers.

Do you know why:

• Hopper leaves us feeling lonely and alienated?
• Hopper appeals to the voyeur in us?
• Hopper is so "American"?
• Hopper was smitten with movies, sex, and automobiles?

Justin Spring is a critic with ArtForum magazine and the author of Wolf Kahn (Abrams). He lives in New York City.