Analysis Of Automat, By Edward Hopper

Edward Hopper’s 1927 oil painting, Automat, shows a lone woman sitting in an automat and through Hopper’s use of color and geometric structure, he depicts the loneliness and despair of this woman. The main focus of the painting is a single woman sitting at a table gazing down at the table where her cup is at. The woman is dressed very nicely, she is wearing an emerald green coat with brown fur trim and a yellow cloche hat. The brim of her hat appears to have been pulled down, slightly covering her face, and she has on only one of her gloves. The woman’s face does not show any emotion, but does appear to have coloration from makeup. From the woman’s appearance it can be inferred that she is of some wealth to have the clothes she does and since she is wearing a coat, one can assume it is a colder time of the year. Behind the woman is vast open window that shows the empty blackness of outside, which fades into some purple, and …show more content…
Most of the colors are not very bright and do not have a great intensity to them. The darkness of the window is not bright, and the green of the coat is very muted but the reflection of the lights in the window does have a little intensity. There is also the highlighting and illumination by the lights on her shoulders and arms of the woman’s coat. The yellow of the woman’s hat is also bright which helps to draw attention to the woman and has a great contrast against the darker coloration of the woman’s coat. The purple color that the dark window has is very complimentary to the yellow of her hat and to the yellow of the lights in the reflection. This complementation also helps to draw attention to the reflection and to the woman’s hat. Since the overall tone of painting is very cool, the basket of fruit which is full of analogous colors of red, orange, and yellow immediately sticks out. Contrasting the cool and warm tones makes the fruit draw attention and helps lead one to the