Highland Light, North Truro, Massachusetts, by Edward Hopper

This painting combines my favorite sides of Edward Hopper’s work: somewhat desolate places (rather than somewhat desolate people), and quick outdoor sketching (rather than more formal and detailed composition). I love how many outbuildings this particular Cape Cod lighthouse has managed to attract—it looks more like the grain silo of a farm than an outpost against seas and storms. “Highland Light” (North Truro, Massachusetts), watercolor over graphite on rough white wove paper, 1930, by Edward Hopper, Harvard Art Museum :: via “Edward Hopper’s Cape Cod: Then and Now,” NYTimes.com, 10 August 2009