Project2- Selected Painting & Narrative

Edward Hopper
South Carolina Morning
Oil painting on Cavas, 1955
Whitney Museum of American Art New York

My Narrative: a place for a plump passionate woman cooking for and eating with her beloved fiance.


Background reading about the painting: "In this painting the Hopper dichotomy is expressed as a tension open to psychological interpretation. The house by the beach is on a raised concrete or stone dais, like a manmade island in a natural setting. The painting's true centre is in the figure of the woman, in her red dress and black shoes. The dress is almost see-through, and the cut and fall of the fabric emphasizes the woman's physical presence. In this almost geometrical composition, the woman's body is dominant, and the effect Hopper achieves is an ambiguous one: the stance of the woman, who is dressed as if to go out, seems the epitome of motionlessness, yet at the same time there is a latent, smouldering dynamism in the sexual challenge she offers"



My own interpretation on this painting: The mid-aged, good-shape woman, who is the key of this painting, dressed well in red and black high-heal. It seems that she is expecting someone(her fiance?) to come. She has already prepared a nice meal for it, and she has confidence for her cooking. from her face, she is lost in her imagination, she is trying to draw the picture of the future happy life with him.


It is harvest time in the autumn, but it's still warm outside. The field of wheat has no end in sight, and they are leaning towards the house, perhaps in a breeze. The house is constructed by dark timber with 4windows in the facade which we can see in the painting, but all of them has been shutted so that no sunlight can get in at that time.So we can guess it's pretty dark inside. Therefor the contrast between the exterior and interior is obviously expressed: endless, bright, fresh, warm(exterior) Vs. small, dark, dull, cold(Interior).


The woman stand in he middle of her doorway. between the exterior and interior. The exterior imply her imagined colourful life in the future, and the interior imply her current isolated lonely life. Hence the door act as a symbol.


So when the man comes, she may open the door and the widows, let the sunshine in, and let him inside, eating the dinner she already cooked , smiling, falling in love...... and the small, dark, dull house will become a bright, happy, warm place then, the same atmosphere as the outside.

The site:
a big farmland somewhere in America.