Room in New York, 1932

Jane Dickson: We're outside looking in the window, which is a very common thing for all New Yorkers to be looking across the street and see in other people's windows.

Narrator: Artist Jane Dickson.

Jane Dickson: But it's something that Hopper really used, and I've used it also, myself, to make a sort of proscenium stage for the action that's happening in the window across the street.

Room in New York is a couple at night, sitting under harsh light. They're both reading. They're not facing each other. They're each in their own world. The light is very harsh overhead. He's sitting in a red chair. She's wearing a red dress, and they're against a green wall. So those are complementary colors, which always sort of set our teeth on edge. So there's nothing happening, and yet it's very tense in this room. And I feel like this is emblematic of a lot of Hopper's work.

Structurally, I just want to point out that in this piece, as well as all of Hopper's work, he's really using shadows and diagonal compositions to lead you through this image and to heighten the dramatic tension. So in this one, there's a table between this couple, but then there's also this door in the background that's like a big wooden slab. It's like it's in the background behind them, but it completely divides them from each other.