The Art Of Solitude

Solitude isn’t loneliness; it’s different. With solitude, you belong to yourself. With loneliness, you belong to no one.

- Naomi Beth Wakan

My husband sings to me in bed the songs of his adolescence, downloaded on his MP3 player. I am struck by the frequency of the word “lonely” in their titles— “Mr. Lonely,” “Lonely Boy,” “Only the Lonely,” “Lonely Street,” “Never Knew Lonely,” “Lonely Teardrops,” “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” I would have thought it is the present time, with folks adhered to Facebook and Twitter, their opposing thumbs brought into full play on iPhones and iPods, for which the word “loneliness” would be most applicable. I am innocent of these new methods and outlets for communication, and I often wonder in amazement what people find to tell each other all day long. Isn’t all that frantic Tweeting and Facebooking sandbagging their own loneliness? Isn’t the present day the time of the alienated?

When I think of “lonely” in the traditional arts, I think immediately of Edward Hopper.

Although Hopper complained that “The loneliness thing is overdone,” to me he always seems to be the outsider, the observer observing the marginal, thus doubling the feeling of loneliness when we look at his canvases. It’s the seeming inability of people to communicate that, for me, is the essence of his paintings. Take his painting Sun in an Empty Room, which seems to reflect a deep separateness. About that painting Hopper commented, “I’m after me.” Surely that is the statement of loneliness. C. S. Lewis said, “We are born helpless. As soon as we are fully conscious, we discover loneliness. We need others physically, emotionally, intellectually; we need them if we are to know anything, even ourselves.” Perhaps this is what Hopper was trying to express.