Nighthawks

Late at night, three customers and a white-clad server sit in the harsh fluorescent glow of an all-night diner, sealed behind a great curved sheet of glass on a deserted city corner, the street outside empty and dark. Edward Hopper gives the scene no door, no way in or out, heightening the sense of isolation. Now in the Art Institute of Chicago, Nighthawks is the supreme image of modern urban loneliness - strangers together yet apart, the bright island of the diner adrift in the silent darkness of the sleeping city.