Jimmy Corsini c. 1901

Edward Hopper made this drawing of Jimmy Corsini with charcoal on paper, and you can feel the process, right? The smudging and the hatching, it’s all there on the surface. The thing that grabs me is this soft hat, it’s so droopy and heavy, and yet the lines describing it are so light, so provisional. There’s a real contrast between the definite darkness of the jacket and the subtle shading on the face. Look at the way Hopper uses these almost scribbled lines to define the planes of the face, how they give him character. Hopper’s work, like that of someone like David Park, reminds us that art is a conversation, and that even in the most realistic depictions, there's room for a little mystery, a little ambiguity. It’s not about answers, it’s about questions.