In the last canvas Edward Hopper ever painted, two clowns, one woman and one man, stand beside each other on the edge of a precipice. We view Two Comedians from right below that edge, the clowns’ feet just barely obscured by the lip of a stage deck that resembles a parapet. His right hand grasps her left at waist height, joining them into a single shape. Their free arms bend at the elbow, his left hand reaching across his torso to cradle his ribs upward in a protective gesture and her right hand stretching slightly forward at her chest, palm cupped and facing upward in an offering to no one. Their knees bend slightly, and their torsos push forward with the same degree of subtlety, their potential energy mounting skyward. A dark blue void stretches behind them, seemingly interminable in depth, interrupted on the left side of the canvas by the painting’s frame and, on the right, by the suggestion of a green hedge and the very edge of a proscenium that reads, as it meets the front of the stage deck below their four feet, like a frame within the frame. The comedians’ eyes are black voids, completely solid beneath foreheads devoid of eyebrows. The shade of red that colors the woman’s cheeks and lips is sinister; whatever she might be presenting with her left hand, whatever destination her come-hither motion might lead to, is menacing. They look, maybe, like they’re taking a bow.
two comedians
two comedians
two comedians
In the last canvas Edward Hopper ever painted, two clowns, one woman and one man, stand beside each other on the edge of a precipice. We view Two Comedians from right below that edge, the clowns’ feet just barely obscured by the lip of a stage deck that resembles a parapet. His right hand grasps her left at waist height, joining them into a single shape. Their free arms bend at the elbow, his left hand reaching across his torso to cradle his ribs upward in a protective gesture and her right hand stretching slightly forward at her chest, palm cupped and facing upward in an offering to no one. Their knees bend slightly, and their torsos push forward with the same degree of subtlety, their potential energy mounting skyward. A dark blue void stretches behind them, seemingly interminable in depth, interrupted on the left side of the canvas by the painting’s frame and, on the right, by the suggestion of a green hedge and the very edge of a proscenium that reads, as it meets the front of the stage deck below their four feet, like a frame within the frame. The comedians’ eyes are black voids, completely solid beneath foreheads devoid of eyebrows. The shade of red that colors the woman’s cheeks and lips is sinister; whatever she might be presenting with her left hand, whatever destination her come-hither motion might lead to, is menacing. They look, maybe, like they’re taking a bow.