How does Automat (Hopper) elucidate its The viewer’s perspective?
The presence of a chairback in the lower right-hand corner of the canvas suggests that the viewer is sitting at a nearby table, from which vantage-point a stranger might be able to glance, uninvited, upon the woman.
In an innovative twist, Hopper made the woman's legs the brightest spot in the painting, thereby "turning her into an object of desire" and "making the viewer a voyeur." By today's standards this description seems overstated, but in 1927 the public display of women's legs was still a relatively novel phenomenon.
Hopper would make the crossed legs of a female subject the brightest spot on an otherwise dark canvas in a number of later paintings, including Compartment C, Car 293 (1938)[1] and Hotel Lobby (1943).[2]
Compartment C, Car 293 Hotel Lobby