Marshall's House Today

Words and photograph by Bob Burnett

My wife Susan and I spent a great week up here in the Truro area out on Cape Cod, staying in a house that was frozen in time in 1932 thanks to a watercolor by Edward Hopper. Our friend, the fifth generation of his family to own the house, has kept it fairly accurate to 1932.

We were out wandering around on a heavily wooded dirt road Susan had found that she thought I'd like for some footage (I'm a director). I had a Canon C300 and a 70–200mm lens on a tripod. I've been shooting footage of the house and the environs. I haven't figured out what to do with the footage yet, but feel some kind of short story will come of it.

A car came up the road, which was the only one I'd seen in hours. It stopped and the driver said hello. There were four other passengers crammed in. Everyone had binder notebooks with Hopper paintings. She apologized for disturbing me and said she takes groups on tours of Hopper painting locations in the region.

Imagine the glee when I said, "we're staying in Marshall's House."

Hopper used to drive around in his car and paint, often using the car as his studio for convenience but, according to others, also to avoid contact with people. He was a quiet man of few words who preferred his own thoughts and space to those spoken by others.

It took me two days of shooting before I started to see subtleties like the light, the mist, and the effect of the wind that he captured so beautifully up here. I'm fortunate to be doing it with a lens and not trying to do it with a brush. Here is a JPEG of the 1932 watercolor as well as a quick iPhone shot I made of the house.

Bob

Bob Burnett is Creative Director of GVI, a video and multimedia production company specializing in advocacy, educational and documentary presentations. Its latest short film is "The Art of Richard Thompson."

©2015 by Robert Burnett, all rights reserved

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Comments

[Bob Kruse]

Thank you, Mike, for the link to Bob's remarkable film and thank you, Bob, for making it. Thanks too for the comments about Marshall's House.

[John Camp]

I always enjoy seeing photos of sites also known in well-known paintings, because it can tell you a lot about both the photographer and the painter. There are a couple of books in which photographers tracked down scenes painted by Cezanne, and the comparisons tell you a whole lot about what we mean by "realism." In Hopper's painting, the proportions aren't quite right, and neither is the overall perspective, but boy, he really nailed the feel of the place. As is the case with the famous Ranch de Taos church, shot by a number of famous photographers, and painted by Georgia O'Keeffe. In my research, good painters always win on "feel," the photographers on accuracy.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

Well that's fun!

[John]

It is always interesting to me to see two images that are so close but captured at different times. The photo was taken just at the right time, with shadows falling nearly the same and the angle of the house front seems about the same... but we do not see the side of the building in the photo but do in the painting. So I am trying to figure out what changed and I think it is the Hopper must have been farther away, viewing from more of a distance and very slightly camera right. The effect is some compression as would be expected from a longer focal length... or do I have that all wrong?

[Ed Hawco]

One of the things that stands out to me is the amount of additional trees and shrubbery in the "now" image. I see the same effect when I look at urban "then and now" photographs of pretty much any city. It seems that in the 1930s and 40s our cities were almost completely denuded of trees outside of designated parks. Now many of our city streets are lined with trees, which makes for a much nicer urban living experience (although it's harder to photograph buildings).

[k4kafka]

It's always a challenge to replicate a painters vision of an actual location. Anyone who has made the trek to visit the Olson house in Cushing, Maine quickly realizes that although the architecture remains,the perspectives in Andrew Wyeth's, "Christina's World" were composed in the mind of the artist.