The process of creativity: Edward Hopper’s “Morning Sun”

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I’m fascinated with the process of creativity. In this series of sketches you can follow the steps Edward Hopper took to finish his painting “Morning Sun” in 1952. In it you see his wife Jo sitting on her bed in the morning sun, gazing out of the window.

When a lay person (like me) only sees the most well known work by famous painters, you get the illusion that Hopper, DaVinci and Van Gogh are geniuses that only produce perfect work – right from the start. But far from it! All the great artists had to do a lot of sketches to get to the final product. They have to get through the bad stuff, do mistakes to get to the good stuff. And there is enough material to prove that: DaVinci obsessed over getting the human heart right. Van Gogh studied hands.

And Hopper wanted to get his Jo right:

  • Click to enlarge any of these pictures.

“Morning Sun” is art for times of Covid-19

In 2020 during the first lockdown people started to look for motifs in paintings that reflected the quarantine situation that so many people were in – and are in again as of January 2021. And Hopper’s “Morning Sun” is one of those findings. In it Jo is sitting on her bed, looking outside, the sun shining into the room. That’s much like we all did at some point in this pandemic.

Maybe studying the process of creativity can help us be more creative. And creativity can cure solitude and boredom in quarantine but that’s for another time.

Check out more of my blog posts on creativity, technology and life:

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