Morning Sun

Edward Hopper painted Morning Sun in 1952. The painting depicts a woman who is sitting alone on an unmade bed.

She is wearing a simple pink shift dress that reveals her bare arms and thighs. It is widely acknowledged that the woman in the painting was modelled on Hopper's wife, Jo.

She faces the window which is allows a stream of sunlight into the room. The woman sits almost impassively, looking out on the scene before her, almost lost in thought and contemplation.

Hopper chose to paint the room in fairly basic colours that appear to be drab and lifeless. The observer s able to glimpse a little detail of the street that is situated below, and this further enhances the stillness and solitude that is felt within the four walls of the room.

The woman is perceived to be alone although in the middle of a bustling urban city.

The issues of woman and social isolation were a recurrent theme within Hopper's paintings, as is shown between the outside and inner world of his paintings. In Morning Sun, the tow world have become joined through the window with the sunlight creating a bond between the two worlds.

What is interesting in this picture, is the fact that the woman appear to be a prisoner with the room as her gaze is directed towards the inner self.

The light in Morning Sun, is predominantly on the woman's body. The observer can clearly see that the sun is warming up hr arms, legs and face, that she is almost bathed in the warmth of the sun.

This is in direct contract to the coldness of the rom. Again this distinguish between hot and cold, helps to emphasise the difference between the inner and outer world.