Hopper and McGahern

The author John McGahern writing about his inspiration said "I think the ordinary is the most precious in life.I think that life is of no value or of absolute value,and I think it is of absolute value.And I think in that sense a woman combing her hair or a man eating an egg is as an important an act as any other'This quote came to mind to day when reading a book on the artist Edward Hopper.Hopper paints the ordinary and the common place,but makes us see it for the first time,in a glorious silence,we are made to see how splendid is the sight of sunlight on a wall in early morning or ,a man sweeping a step.I believe the artist is able to show us that great art is often made from such ordinary life,because of his artistic philosophy,to quote Hopper "Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist,and this inner life will result in his personal vision of the world.I myself believe this inner world can only be cultivated by a careful observation of the outer world,especially in its ordinary and common place manifestations.

Peter Howson.

Peter Howson is a Scottish artist whose subject matter is more often than not the people who exist at the very fringes of modern urban society such as the homeless ,drug addicts etc.Howson depicts his individuals in a kind of heroic hopelessness,in which a host of characters are helplessly driven by their paranoid and aggressive mental states.Howson subjects are a composite of many individuals that the artist has met in his travels around Glasgow.His characters are social constructs that are un romantically portrayed in exaggerated characterisation.