ALAIN DE BOTTON ON EDWARD HOPPER AND THE PLEASURES OF SADNESS ...

His figures look as though they are far from home, they stand reading a letter on the edge of a hotel bed or drinking in a bar, they gaze out of the window of a moving train or read a book in a hotel lobby. .... Hotels offer a similar opportunity to escape our habits of mind and it is unsurprising that Hopper painted them repeatedly ('Hotel Room', 1931, 'Hotel Lobby', 1943, 'Rooms for tourists', 1945, 'Hotel by a railroad', 1952, 'Hotel Window', 1956 and 'Western Motel', ...