Hopper first began painting the effects of sunlight as a young art student in Paris, and this interest continued throughout his career. As a mature artist, he lived and worked in New York City and spent most of his summers on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He designed and built a sunny, secluded studio at Truro on the bluff overlooking the ocean.... Hopper had a way of communicating his inner life...feelings of despair and desolation, as well as his sense of beauty...finding them in the buildings and objects he painted. He filled empty rooms with the mystery of existence and his own spirit. In essence, he, like Van Gogh, was painting not just the objects themselves, but turning them literally into self portraits. [https://www.edwardhopper.net/rooms-by-the-sea.jsp]