The Lighthouse and Two Lights and Coast Guard Station, Two Lights, Essay

The Lighthouse and Two Lights and Coast Guard Station, Two Lights, Maine - Essay Example The essay "The Lighthouse and Two Lights and Coast Guard Station, Two Lights, Maine" analyzes Edward Hopper's "The Lighthouse and Two Lights" and "Coast Guard Station, Two Lights, Maine". Hopper’s style features shapes that are strongly contrasted against each other, giving them a sense of being solidly real as in his paintings â€Å"The Lighthouse at Two Lights† (1929) and â€Å"Coast Guard Station, Two Lights, Maine† (1927). Although these two paintings seem to have been painted in the same area of the country and in the same style, the paintings achieve different effects. These paintings share similar subjects and locations even though their dimensions are quite different. Both paintings depict scenes found on the coast of Maine. The focal point of both paintings is centered upon a white structure as it appears on a clear day in the style of the American Realist. â€Å"Placed in the middle of a cultural search for an American identity precipitated by a nation al crisis, the artist was caught between hope and helplessness. The quest for what was uniquely American inspired the artist to paint the heroic, the ordinary and the novel†. In painting a coast guard station and a lighthouse, Hopper caught an image of the heroic, the ordinary and the novel all in the singular structure of the building featured. The lighthouse painting is approximately 29 inches high by approximately 43 inches wide while the coast guard station painting is significantly smaller at approximately 14 inches high by approximately 20 inches wide.