Risking Sentimentality

"Hopper paints that situation. He paints individuals of great inner depth with the full knowledge that that inner depth itself can never be painted. Because he is painting people as surfaces, he is going to flirt with cliché constantly. When he gets it wrong, when he tries to be too evocative, too objective, the whole thing falls apart. It gets corny. Like the clown. But that is the danger of painting surfaces that only hint at the underlying depths."