In Chair Car, a progression of yellow blocks of light on the train car floor, flanked by windows and chairs, leads to the end of the car, which seems not only large but stripped of features we associate with rail-cars—notably, an overhead rack for luggage and a handle or window on the door. The high ceiling, which is unusually squarish instead of tapered, and the closed door have the effect of establishing an absolute barrier to our forward motion and creating the strong impression that if the people here are traveling, they are not going far. Nor is there anything outside the windows to suggest motion, nothing but the light, which, though it leads the viewer to the door, seems to immobilize the painting, freezing it in an absolute present. This is another example of the occluded vanishing point. We are led down the aisle and denied continued progress, or the satisfaction of doing what we have been led to expect. This painting’s equivalent of the clump of trees in Stairway is the missing handle on the door.
One of the charming features of Chair Car is the way the four passengers display a randomness of individual concerns. One reads, another stares at the one who reads, another’s head is tilted to the right, another’s to the left. In some way, the inwardness of each seems to intersect the main thrust of the painting, freeing them from the imprisoning character of the car. The sensation of being both locked in and locked out at once is closely related to what we experience in Nighthawks, which urges us forward while insisting that we stay. It is a fairly consistent pattern in Hopper that a pictorial geometry should demand an action contrary to what the narrative wills.
Chair Car, 1965
Private collection (ill.18)