NightHawks

In my high school teachers forced us to take notes in all of our readings. We would be given an assignment for a night, take notes in the actual text, then go over the reading in class with the teacher slyly eyeing our pages as we read to make sure they were sufficiently marked. My approach for analytical reading would be to first do a complete read through, stopping and taking note of words I did not understand with my dictionary. Then I would go back to search for symbolism and hidden meaning (especially in Shakespeare). Analyzing non- creative works and/or passages for classes like history was slightly more difficult for me. Instead of searching for hidden meanings or motifs, important facts would have to be noted and handpicked from the selection. Sometimes distinguishing what was of value and what was irrelevant was hard. What I eventually learned was the picking out relevant points became easier as I focused in on the main idea of the subject matter. I realized that in every persuasive essay, speech, informative paper and historical document there was a central thesis to start from. Once this central thesis was identified, moving on with my notes became much simpler.
After reading Benjamin Killip’s analysis of Night Hawks I have to say that I can’t find much to disagree with. The dark colors outside of the window do suggest a desolate world and the light inside of the restaurant undoubtably represents a safe haven. One thing I can say about Killip’s is that he assumes to much in the painting without evidence. It is fine to examine how shades of colors and lighting contribute to a painting, but to draw inferences about relationships from this amount of detail seems to be too much of a stretch for me. In fact, his assumption about the couple could actually be false because it appears that their hands are actually touching which suggests intimacy. Despite this slip up (in my opinion), Killips provides historical evidence for the rest of his paper, recalling the mindset of isolation plaguing many Americans throughout the Great Depression era. He also makes a connection between this painting and the Realism movement that artists during this time period were a part of.