Probably Munch's most
famous painting, The Scream (1893; originally called Despair) is
regarded as an icon of existential anguish. As with many of his
works, he painted several versions of it. The Scream is one of a
number of works in a series entitled The Frieze of Life, which Munch
assembled round the turn of the 20th century; it deals with themes
of life, love, fear, death and melancholy. All of these themes recur
throughout Munch's work, in paintings such as The Sick Child (1886,
portrait of his deceased sister Sophie), Vampire (1893-94), Ashes
(1894) and The Bridge. The latter shows limp figures with featureless
or hidden faces, over which loom the threatening shapes of heavy
trees and brooding houses. Munch portrayed women either as frail,
innocent sufferers or as lurid, life-devouring vampires. This reflects
Munch's sexual anxieties
Biography
Munch was born on December 12th, 1863, in Løten, Norway,
but grew up in Christiania (now Oslo). Munch was related to painter
Jacob Munch (1776-1839) and historian Peter Andreas Munch (1810-1863).
After the death of his mother, Laura Cathrine Bjølstad, of
tuberculosis in 1868, Munch was raised by his (mentally ill) father,
Christian Munch, who instilled in his children a deep-rooted fear
for hell by repeatedly telling them, that if they sinned in any
way, shape or form, they would be doomed for hell, without any chance
of pardon. While Munch was still young, his parents (in 1868 and
1889), a brother and Munch's favourite sister Sophie (in 1877) died.
A younger sister was diagnosed with mental illness at an early age.
Edvard himself was often ill. Of the five siblings only one, Andreas,
ever married, only to die a few months after the wedding. This probably
explains the bleakness and pessimism of much of Munch's work. Munch
would later say: "Sickness, insanity and death were the angels
that surrounded my cradle and they have followed me throughout my
life." In 1879, Munch entered Technical College to become an
engineer. However, frequent illnesses interrupted his studies. In
1880, Munch left College to become a painter. In 1881, Munch enrolled
at the Royal School of Art and Design of Kristiania (later Oslo).
His teachers there were sculptor Julius Middelthun and naturalistic
painter Christian Krohg. In 1885, Munch traveled to Paris. His work
began to show the influence of French painters; first of the impressionists,
and then of the postimpressionists and of art nouveau design. While
stylistically influenced by the postimpressionists, Munch's subject
matter is symbolist in content, depicting a state of mind rather
than an external reality. In 1892, Munch was invited by the Union
of Berlin Artists to exhibit at its November exhibition. Munch's
paintings became the object of bitter controversy. After one week,
the exhibition was closed. In Berlin, Munch became involved in an
international circle of writers, artists and critics, including
the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen (Munch designed the sets for
several of Ibsen's plays) and the Swedish dramatist August Strindberg.
Between 1892 and 1908, Munch spent much of his time in Paris and
Berlin, where he became known for his etchings, his lithographs,
and his woodcuts. At the turn of the century, while in Berlin, Munch
had begun experimenting with a variety of new mediums (photography,
lithography and woodcuts), in many instances re-working his older
imagery. In the autumn of 1908, Munch's anxiety became acute and
he was hospitalized in the clinic of Dr. Daniel Jacobson. The shock
therapy Munch received in hospital changed his personality. After
returning to Norway in 1909, Munch showed more interest in nature,
and his work became more colourful and less pessimistic. During
the Nazi era, Munch's works were labeled "degenerate art"
and were removed from German museums. This deeply hurt (the antifascist)
Munch, who had come to see Germany as his second fatherland. During
his career, Munch changed his idiom many times. In the 1880s, Munch's
idiom was Naturalistic (e.g. Portrait of Hans Jæger) and partly
Impressionistic (e.g. Rue Lafayette). In 1892, Munch formulated
his characteristic and original Synthetist idiom (e.g. Melancholy),
in which colour was the symbol-laden element (e.g. The Scream).
During the 1890s, Munch favoured a shallow pictorial space, and
placed in it his frequently frontal figures. Since their poses were
chosen to produce the most convincing images of the states of mind
and psychological conditions (e.g. Ashes) he wished to depict, they
tended to lend the paintings a monumental, static quality. Munch's
figures appear to be playing roles on a theatre stage (e.g. Death
in the Sick-Room), even perhaps, a pantomime of fixed postures signifying
the emotions. Because he gave his characters one psychological dimension
only (e.g. The Scream), Munch's men and women are not realistic.
Munch maintained that Impressionism was an idiom which did not suit
his art. Munch was interested in portraying not a random slice of
reality but situations brimming with emotional content and expressive
energy. That is why his compositions are carefully calculated to
create this tense atmosphere. Munch died in Ekely, near Oslo, on
January 23rd, 1944, about a month after his 80th birthday. He left
1,000 paintings, 15,400 prints, 4,500 drawings and watercolors,
and 6 sculptures to the city of Oslo, which built the Munch Museum
(at Tøyen) in his honor. This museum houses the broadest
collection of his works. Some of his paintings are at the National
Gallery, also in Oslo. The bar Dagligstuen at Hotel Continental
in Oslo has a number of good prints.
Frieze of Life
In December 1893, Munch had an exhibition at Unter den Linden in
Berlin. At the exhibition, Munch showed, among other things, six
paintings entitled Study for a Series: Love. This was the beginning
of a cycle he would later call the Frieze of Life — A Poem
about Life, Love and Death. It includes motifs that are steeped
in atmosphere such as The Storm, Moonlight and Starry Night. Other
motifs illuminate the nocturnal side of love, such as Rose and Amelie
and Vampire. Death in the Sickroom (1893) has death as a theme.
It is based on the memory of Munch's sister Sophie's death. In the
painting, the whole family is represented. The dramatic focus in
the picture is on the Munch-figure. In 1894, the Frieze of Life
was enlarged by motifs such as Anxiety, Ashes, Madonna and Women
in Three Stages. Around the turn of the century, Munch tried to
finish the Frieze. He painted a number of pictures, several of them
in larger format and to some extent featuring the art nouveau aesthetics
of the time. He made a wooden frame with carved reliefs for the
large painting Metabolism (1898), initially called Adam and Eve.
This work reveals Munch's preoccupation with the fall of man myth
in Munch's pessimistic philosophy of love. Motifs such as The Empty
Cross and Golgota (both c. 1900) reflect a metaphysical orientation
to the times, and also echo Munch's pietistic upbringing. The entire
Frieze was showed for the first time at the Secession exhibition
in Berlin in 1902.
This article is licensed
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article "Munch".
Never knowingly looked
on the bright side
Munch is a genius, we have to
say that first of all. His free strokes, his excitement in
painting everyday are marvellous and imbue his pictures with
a delight that the subjects shouldn't really have. For Munch
is obsessed with the sad and depressing.
A fin-de-siecle sensibility,
except that it's quite often a middle-of-siecle sensibility
as well. Munch did have a terrible childhood with mothers
and favourite sisters dying willy-nilly.
His famous work the scream needs
no introduction or explanation, save to say that in other
hands it would have been a twee, look at me nonsense, and
Munch made it a delight in oil. |
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