Mystery and Melancholy Everyone has a story to tell, and in one of Edward Hopper’s most famous works, Nighthawks, he tells a story though is painting. There are four individuals in this bar in the middle of the night, but we have no idea who any of these people are. There is an element of mystery to this painting, because the viewer has no idea what these people are like, where they are from, what their names are, and who they really are. The onlooker does not even know what one of the individuals looks like because he is faced in the opposite direction. All the viewer knows is that they are average people who life brought together in a single location in the middle of the night. The element of mystery engages the viewer into the painting, and makes them take a second glance at it before moving on. Hopper used oil paints on canvas to make the painting in 1942. The main subject matter of the painting is the bar and the people inside it, and the painting is also fairly realistic in its depiction of the scene. Also, there is a sharp contrast between the lights and the darks of this painting. Hopper was experimenting with the use of fluorescent lighting when he created this painting. The bar is…show more content… The people in the bar are not posing for this painting, and it is an one hundred percent candid view of the subject matter, which gives the onlooker a slightly better sense of what these people are like. Also, it is not a close up of the bar, but a view from a distance. As a viewer, it seems as though you are on the street looking at the bar from afar, just observing the people inside it. This gives a feeling of loneliness and melancholy to the onlooker of the painting. It feels as though the people inside of the bar are real, but that you will never be able to get to know them, or be with them. This is not the only way that the painting conveys loneliness