Arty Farty Friday ~ From Hopper House to McMansions to Rapunzel & Pringles

The Sun will soon leave zodiac sign Cancer, for this year, but before it does I notice there'll be an important American painter's birthday anniversary tomorrow, that of Edward Hopper. I've blogged about this artist on three past occasions: HERE, HERE and HERE, between 2007 and 2013. Today I'm drawing attention, again, to just one of his works:

The House by the Railroad (1925)

Edward Hirsch wrote a poem about that painting, it begins:

The House by the Railroad

Out here in the exact middle of the day,
This strange, gawky house has the expression
Of someone being stared at, someone holding
His breath underwater, hushed and expectant;

This house is ashamed of itself, ashamed
Of its fantastic mansard rooftop
And its pseudo-Gothic porch, ashamed
of its shoulders and large, awkward hands......

Full poem can be read HERE

It ends:

...This man will paint other abandoned mansions,
And faded cafeteria windows, and poorly lettered
Storefronts on the edges of small towns.
Always they will have this same expression,

The utterly naked look of someone
Being stared at, someone American and gawky.
Someone who is about to be left alone
Again, and can no longer stand it.


I was reminded of this particular Hopper painting after spending much time nodding and chuckling though a website/blog McMansion Hell. There's a section devoted to the 50 States of McMansion Hell, where the author, Kate Wagner, has begun taking readers through the architectural horrors and decor mis-demeanors of high-priced modern mansions in each US state. There are also sections devoted to architecture, McMansions 101, history, as well as some of general arty-farty type interest. A visit is highly recommended. From the home page, to access heading links to all the good stuff available, just click on the three little lines in the very top left-hand corner of the screen.

Edward Hopper's House by the Railroad wasn't, of course, a McMansion, but many of today's over-priced, piles, filled with pretensions to opulence and historical relevance do owe a lot to similar styles from decades past - it's just that they their designers didn't know when to stop - or where!

I've wondered if, in decades long past, builders used a common catalogue of styles available as "sets" - a bit like a Lego set. The customer would pick one from the "menu" and could also order from a list of "sides" - as happens in restaurants. Perhaps the same things happen today, in the case of McMansions, but menus now have a wider variety of sides, and McMansion customers have bigger appetites and fatter wallets.

 "Rapunzel Towers"

 McMansion "Pringle Can of Shame"

As we drive around, just through some of our neighbouring "fly-over" states, we often spy much older houses, either left unoccupied, or currently owned by people of fairly modest means, sporting what we've come to call "Rapunzel Towers"; Ms Wagner calls these "Pringles Cans of Shame". Kansans, especially, during past decades, seem to have had a liking for this "side" of architectural kitsch.

Summer Solstice ~ Hopper's and Vettriano's Summers

Today: Summer Solstice in the northern hemisphere, while winter begins in the southern half of the globe.

Oklahoma summers are not my cup o' tea by a long chalk. Why? The extreme heat, the insect bites, the allergies..... so excuse me if I don't celebrate with wild enthusiasm. To mark the day, though, I'll pull out half a dozen depictions of summer by a couple of favouite painters of mine. These two don't paint leafy glades and gardens filled with flowers, instead their summers are urbane in flavour rather than rural.....It comes as a surprise that I find a more evocative sense of summer in these works than from any rural or floral scene, even those painted by the best of the best. My two chosen painters: Edward Hopper and Jack Vettriano, the former is a well-loved American artist, the latter artist is sometimes - always even - derided by critics, but that only endears him to me the more!

There are archived posts on both artists with notes about their astrology HERE
and HERE.


Edward Hopper's summer ~~

Jack Vettriano's summer ~~

And a matching track: The Summer Knows - theme from the 1971 movie The Summer of '42. It was composed by multiple Oscar and Grammy Award winner, French composer Michel Legrand, with lyrics by Marilyn and Alan Bergman, sung here by Scott Walker, whose rendition has just the right "feel" to it to blend with these paintings.

Or...if a female vocalist is preferred, it'd be hard to top Ms Streisand's version -nice video with this one too:

Zodiac Sign Cancer, Solstice, & Edward Hopper

Reviving here paragraphs from Ingrid Lind's little book Astrology & Commonsense (1962) to discover her take on the sign ruled by the Moon ~ Cancer:

The conflict here is the busy, active cardinal quality as part of an otherwise entirely emotional, negative and intuitive nature, The signs starting from Aries are alternately positive and negative. Taurus has many negative or feminine characteristics and this is true of Cancer. Here, to carry on the picture of gradual expansion from primitivity, woman has now fulfilled herself in motherhood, Whereas in Taurus her man came first, it is now her child and her home; and her energy is expressed in the effort to protect and preserve these.

Thus, in men or women whose charts show strength in Cancer there is a pronounced love of home or family and great loyalty to these. Just as a mother instinctively knows the need of her child and senses the approach of danger, so the Cancerian is intuitive and aware of surrounding atmosphere and public feeling. During the period of gestation any woman increases in sensitvity; she protects the child in her womb and has a natural feeling of self-importance in this act of creation, Cancerian women seem to have much of these feelings as a normal part of their emotional makeup. It would possibly be taken amiss if I were to suggest that Cancerians are like permanently pregnant women; but indeed it is true that much of the hypersensitivity and tendency to take things personally is typical of this sign in men and women.

Cancerian Qualities
Tenderness
Intuitiveness
Sensitivity
Thrift
Protectiveness

Cancerian Faults
Possessiveness
Fussiness
Touchiness
Hoarding
Taking things too personally

Earlier posts about zodiac sign Cancer can be easily accessed via the Label Cloud in the sidebar - just click on "Cancer".


Cancer also stands at the gate of Solstice, Summer Solstice in the northern hemisphere, Winter Solstice for our southern cousins. There was a good article on Solstice in a rather unexpected place yesterday: Common Dreams. Written by James Carroll : A Solstice Approaches, Unnoticed. He begins:

ONCE, HUMANS were intimate with the cycles of nature, and never more than on the summer solstice. Vestiges of such awareness survive in White Nights and Midnight Sun festivals in far northern climes, and in neo-pagan adaptations of Midsummer celebrations, but contemporary people take little notice of the sun reaching its far point on the horizon.

We know, don't we, that there's still a coterie of astrologically aware people who keep an eye on the sky, and who are quite often ridiculed for so doing?

And he closes thus:

As our sense of the complexities of life quickened and deepened, our destructiveness of life also quickened and deepened. Through ambitions of unlimited growth, consumption, competitive manufacture, and self-expanding technology, we humans have become a mechanism of extinction. When we stopped noticing Earth, we began to destroy it.

Intimate awareness of nature and its cycles, as we saw, was an ancient mode of survival. But survival is at issue again. Noticing the length of light now, reveling in the sun’s achievement, rejoicing in Earth’s perfect balance, honoring the summer solstice — loving it: This is how we became human, and it is how we stay human.

Solstice Greetings to all passing readers, in both hemispheres.




One of the best examples I know, of a Cancerian-type displaying his astrological credentials in his art, was American painter Edward Hopper. Born 22 July 1882, Nyack, New York. No birth time available - chart for 12 noon.




Much of Hopper's artwork reveals two things - a feeling of loneliness and isolation, and the stability of a home. He loved to paint houses - homes. He also liked to portray the isolation which can come from city life. In some of his paintings there's also more than a hint of love of the sea - yachts, lighthouses. How could the sign represented by a crab not love the sea? He also was fond of painting aspects of summer - some examples below.

Hopper's natal Sun and Mercury in Cancer reflect his very obvious attraction to houses - homes, together with an ever present feeling of isolation or withdrawal. The sign of Cancer is well known as being the "homely" sign of the zodiac, Cancerian qualities also include shyness and withdrawal (think of a crab disappearing into its shell).

Saturn and Neptune in Taurus with Venus, Mars and Uranus in Virgo bring a lot of Earthy element to his chart - another hint as to why he was so attracted to portraying houses, homes, buildings, something solid, stable and reliable.

Pluto and Jupiter in Gemini. Moon is certain to be somehwere in Libra whatever the time of birth. These placements provide Airy lightness and a nice balance in his personality.

Pluto in Gemini brought forth so many great communicators, both verbally and pictorially - Hopper is certainly one of these. Lloyd Goodrich wrote of him:

No artist has painted a more revealing portrait of twentieth-century America. But he was not merely an objective realist. His art was charged with strong personal emotion, with a deep attachment to our familiar everyday world, in all its ugliness, banality, and beauty.

His best known painting: NIGHTHAWKS


And a video for good measure, with Benny Goodman playing along ~

Edward Hopper - his astrology reflected in his art

I always enjoy looking at the charts of artists. Their style often so clearly reflects their astrology. This isn't surprising - art, or good art at least, has to be the outward expression of inner feeling.


American artist Edward Hopper is a good example of the above. Above is possibly his most famous painting "Nighthawks".

Born 22 July 1882, Nyack, New York. No birth time available - chart for 12 noon.


Much of Hopper's artwork reveals two things - a feeling of loneliness and isolation, and the stability of a home.
He loved to paint houses - homes. He also liked to portray the isolation which can come from big city life. In some of his paintings there's also a hint of love of the sea - yachts, lighthouses.




His natal Sun and Mercury in Cancer probably reflect his very obvious attraction to houses and homes, together with an ever present lonelienss.The sign of Cancer is well known as being the "homely" sign of the zodiac, and Cancerian qualities also include shyness and withdrawal ( a crab disappearing into its shell). His liking for the sea may also stem from this Cancerian influence.

Saturn and Neptune in Taurus with Venus, Mars and Uranus in Virgo make his chart quite Earthy - another hint as to why he was so attracted to portraying houses, homes, buildings, almost always something stable and reliable.

Pluto and Jupiter are in Gemini. Moon is certain to be somehwere in Libra whatever the time of birth. These placements provide some Airy lightness to his personality. Pluto in Gemini brought forth so many great communicators, both verbally and pictorially - Hopper is certainly one of these.
Lloyd Goodrich wrote of him:
"No artist has painted a more revealing portrait of twentieth-century America. But he was not merely an objective realist. His art was charged with strong personal emotion, with a deep attachment to our familiar everyday world, in all its ugliness, banality, and beauty."

This video offers many glimpses of his work, along with some relevant comments, and nice background music by Benny Goodman.