Friday Afternoons

I went to see a Hopper and a Turner exhibit today per the recommendation of my professor. At the Hopper exhibit, I looked for what the professor suggested--themes of absorption and Annunciation, but was actually more struck by the houses that he painted, particularly by the ones he painted from the back. There is that sense of absorption that he captures with the figures in many of his paintings, but it is even more interesting because he manages to get at it with the house, its back turned toward the viewer. Also, there's just something about rural New England homes.

What struck me most about the Turners was the way that he handled the weather. Additionally, he was clearly flirting with the sublime in the way that explains his affinity for the overlap between poetry and painting.