ARCH 1201 - Primary Ideas extracted from the painting

The Narrative

"A lonely man lost in the middle of a at night seeking for warmth and light"

The Site

A Tundra
(a large icy dark field with almost no vegetation and hardly any sunlight)

Some of the main ideas we could see from the painting are

- Comparison between the delusional world and reality with the isolation of the people in the diner and the narrator outside looking into the diner.

- Entrapment could be seen with the absence of entrance into the pub from the outside world showing that the people within the pub are trapped within the small yet visible space.

- This painting was painted during the War therefore it symbolises the general public of America at the time.

- Phillies Cigar builds on the idea of delusion and reality because people smoke in order to dwell within their imaginary world.

- Isolation with the narrator being in Manhattan there is no one around showing that outside the delusional world is a cold humanless and dark world.

- The yellow light from within the pub signifies the idea of cowardice with the outburst of the colour of yellow.

- Alcohol like the Cigar shows delusion

- The contrasting of space with the enclosed small diner with the dark tall towers with open windows showing the openness yet empty space contrasting with the small confined light and packed (compared to outside) space.

Duncan Chang