ANECDOTES : Two comedians - Edward Hopper : The artist, the muse and death

Two comedians - Edward Hopper : The artist, the muse and death

This is the last painting by Hopper, two years before his death. And it is a farewell. The farewell of a painter and his regular female model. For Jo Hopper was, it seems, so jealous as a tigress that she would not have tolerated seeing another woman posing for her husband. Hence the striking resemblance between all the female characters in Hopper's work. They are all called Jo. It is therefore a duo of artistic accomplices who come to greet us in the garb of Pierrot and Pierrette from commedia dell'arte as they leave the stage, both having reached the age of 80. This stage is intended to be as large as the world. And its background set is as sinister as a mortuary vault. The woman stands a little behind the artist, deferential, even shy. But, for once, there is physical contact between the characters in a Hopper painting. Unlike, for example, the figures in Nighthawks, lined up side by side like sardines, the couple depicted here are holding hands. A ceremony of recognition and officialisation. One could almost see this as a feminist painting if one were to detach the work from its intimate context. The art of painting a picture about death without naming it.