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Edvard Munch
(1863-1944)
The Norwegian artist Edvard Munch is regarded
as a pioneer in the Expressionist movement in
modern painting. At an early stage Munch was
recognized in Germany and central Europe as one
of the creators of a new epoch. His star is still
on the ascendant in the other European countries,
and in the rest of the world. Munch's art from
the 1890s is the most well known, but his later
work is steadily attracting greater attention,
and it appears to inspire present-day artists
in particular.
By Frank Høifødt
Edvard Munch grew up in Norway's
capital, Oslo, then called Christiania. His father,
Christian Munch - brother of the well-known historian
P.A. Munch - was a deeply religious military
doctor earning a modest income. His wife, who
was 20 years his junior, died of tuberculosis
when Edvard was only five years old, and Edvard's
older sister, Sophie, died of the disease at
the age of 15. Edvard himself was often ill.
A younger sister was diagnosed with mental illness
at an early age. Of the five siblings only one,
Andreas, ever married, only to die a few months
after the wedding.
His childhood home was culturally
stimulating, but in his art Munch turned again
and again to the memory of illness, death and
grief.
Realism
After a year at Technical School, Munch became
dedicated to art. He studied the old masters,
attended courses in the painting of nudes at
the Royal School of Drawing and was instructed
for a time by Norway's leading artist, Christian
Krohg. His early works were influenced by French-inspired
Realism, and his great talent was soon discovered.
In 1885 Munch went on a short
study tour to Paris. That year he started on
the work that was to be his breakthrough, "The
Sick Child", in which he makes a radical
break with the realistic approach seen in a similar
motif by Christian Krohg. Munch's picture was
about his sister Sophie. He struggled with the
motif a long time, searching for "the first
impression" and a valid painterly expression
for a painful, personal experience. He had renounced
perspective and plastic form, and had attained
a composition formula reminiscent of icons. The
course texture of the surface displayed all the
signs of a laborious creative process. The criticism
was very negative.
His main works from subsequent
years are less provocative in their form. "Inger
on the Beach" from 1889 shows Munch's ability
to portray a lyrical atmosphere, in keeping with
the new romantic trend of that time. The picture
is painted in Åsgårdstrand, a small
coastal town near Horten. It is this region's
characteristic coastline we find used as a meaningful
"leitmotif" in so many of Munch's compositions.
Kristiania bohemian
In 1889 he painted a portrait of the leader of
the Kristiania (as Christiania was now spelled)
bohemians, Hans Jæger. Munch's association
with Jæger and his circle of radical
anarchists became a crucial turning point in
his life and a source of new inner unrest and
conflict. At that time Munch commenced an extensive
biographical literary production which he resumed
at different periods in his life. These early
writings serve as a reference for several of
the central motifs of the 'nineties. In keeping
with Jæger's ideas he wanted to present
truthful close-ups of the modern individual's
longings and agonies - he wanted to paint his
own life.
The years in France
In the autumn of 1889 Munch held a large separate
exhibition in Kristiania, and was thereafter
awarded a state travel grant for three consecutive
years. Naturally, he went to Paris, where for
a short time he was a pupil of Léon
Bonnat, but he became more inspired by acquainting
himself with the city's art life. At that time
a Post-Impressionistbreakthrough was in progress
along with different anti-naturalist experiments.
This had a liberating effect on Munch.
"The camera cannot compete with a brush
and canvas," he wrote, "as long as
it can't be used in heaven and hell."
The first autumn, shortly after
Munch arrived in France, he was informed that
his father had died. The loneliness and melancholy
in the painting "Night" (1890) are
often seen with this in mind. The dark interior
with the lonely figure at the window is completely
dominated by tones of blue - a painting of nuances
which may be reminiscent of James McNeill Whistler's
nocturnal colour harmonies. This modern and independent
work is also an expression of the "decadence"
in the final decade of the century.
At the Autumn Exhibition in
Kristiania in 1891 Munch showed among other works "Melancholy".
Great curved lines and more homogeneous colour
surfaces dominate here; there is a simplifying
and formalizing of the motif similar to that
found in French Synthetism. "Symbolism -
nature is formed by one's state of mind," wrote
Munch.
At this time Munch did the first
sketches of the well-known "The Scream".
He also painted several pictures in an Impressionist
style verging on pointillism, with motifs from
the Seine and from Kristiania's promenade, Karl
Johan. However, it is the impressions of the
soul, and not the eye, that are Munch's main
interest.
"The Scream" is often
described as the first expressionistic picture,
and is the most extreme example of Munch's "soul
paintings". The facial expression depends
to a large degree on the painting's dynamics,
the colours and lines. The scene - and particularly
the foreground figure - are grotesquely distorted
and rendered in colours that are not taken from
external reality. Coming as it does from Munch's
own "inner hell", the painting visualizes
a desperate aspect of fin-de-siècle: anxiety
and apocalypse. The percussiveness of the motif
shows that it also speaks to our day and age.
Berlin
In the autumn of 1892 Munch
gave a broad presentation of his art, in which
he included the fruits of his sojourn in France.
This exhibition resulted in Munch being invited
to show the same paintings to the Artist's Association
of Berlin. It was a formidable "succès
de scandale". The general public and the
older painters interpreted Munch's art as anarchistic
provocation, and the exhibition was closed in
protest.
Because of that, Munch had made
a name for himself in Berlin and he decided to
stay there. He entered a circle of literati,
artists and intellectuals, including a strong
element of Scandinavians. The circle numbered
among others the Norwegian sculptor Gustav Vigeland,
the Danish writer Holger Drachman, the Polish
poet Stanislaw Przybyszewski and the German art
historian Julius Meier-Graefe. Of most importance
to Munch was the meeting with Swedish dramatist
August Strindberg. They discussed the philosophy
of Nietzsche, occultism, psychology and the dark
sides of sexuality.
In December 1893 Munch had an
exhibition at Unter den Linden where he 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", where one dimly
perceives the influence of Arnold Böcklin.
Other motifs illuminate the nocturnal side of
love, such as "Rose and Amelie" and
"Vampire". Several pictures have death
as a theme: "Death in the Sickroom"
(1893) created quite a stir. In this composition
Munch's debt to the French Synthetists and Symbolists
is obvious. Painted in garish and pallid colours,
the picture shows a scene frozen fast like the
tragic final tableau in a drama. The motif is
based on the memory of his sister Sophie's death,
and the whole family is represented. The dramatic
focus in the picture is on the figure who represents
Munch himself. The following year the "Frieze
of Life" was enlarged by motifs such as "Anxiety",
"Ashes", "Madonna" and "Women
in Three Stages", the latter a monumental
motif completely in keeping with the spirit of
Symbolism.
Together with Meier-Graefe and
others, Przybyszewski published in 1894 the first
publication about Munch's art, which he characterizes
as "psychological realism".
Back to Berlin
In the spring of 1896 Munch
left Berlin and settled down in Paris, where
his associates again included Strindberg. He
was now devoting greater attention to the graphic
medium, at the expense of painting. In Berlin
he had begun etching and lithography; he was
now making exquisite colour lithographs and his
first woodcuts in partnership with the famous
printer Auguste Clot. Munch had also plans for
publishing a portfolio titled "The Mirror",
a graphic version of the "Frieze of Life".
Today Munch is regarded as one the classics in
graphic arts, owing to his unique command of
the medium and his great artistic originality.
In Paris he made the programme
posters for two Ibsen productions at the Théâtre
de L'Oeuvre, while a commission to illustrate
Baudelaire's "Les Fleurs du Mal" got
no further than the initial phase.
Back in Norway in 1898, he drew
the illustrations for a special issue of the
German periodical "Quickborn", which
was written by Strindberg.
Turn of the century
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",
the work reveals the central place the fall of
man myth has 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 turbulent love affair he
had at this time strengthened Munch's view of
art as a calling.
The turn of the century was
a phase of restless experimentation. A more colourful
and decorative style manifests itself, influenced
by the art of the Nabis, particularly Maurice
Denis. As early as 1899 Munch painted "The
Dance of Life", which can be interpreted
as a daring and personal monumentalization of
this decorative flat style.
A series of landscape paintings
from the Kristiania fjord, decorative and sensitive
studies of nature, are regarded as highlights
in Nordic symbolism. The classic and evocative
"Girls on the Bridge" was painted in
Åsgårdstrand the summer of 1901.
Success and crisis
In the early years of the new
century Munch was in the process of firmly establishing
his career. In 1902 he showed the entire Frieze
for the first time at the Secession exhibition
in Berlin. An exhibition in Prague in 1905 had
an impact on several Czech artists. Portraits,
usually full-length, gradually constituted an
important part of his oeuvre. The group portrait
of Dr. Linde's sons (1904) is reckoned to be
one of the masterpieces of modern portraiture.
The Fauvists, led by Matisse,
shared many of Munch's new artistic approaches.
The "Die Brücke" group in Dresden
was interested in Munch, but they did not succeed
in getting him to show his paintings at their
exhibitions.
Artistic success was accompanied
by personal conflicts. Alcohol had become a problem,
and Munch was emotionally unstable. He was plagued
by the memories of his tragic love affair, which
had come to a dramatic end with a revolver scene
in Åsgårdstrand in the autumn of
1902, permanently injuring a finger on Munch's
left hand. He nevergot over the ignominy of this
incident, but during these years it became an
obsession. The woman's features can be seen in "Death
of Marat" (two versions from 1907), a motif
which more generally can be said to portray "the
battle called love between men and women".
Henrik Ibsen died in May 1906,
and in the autumn Munch made the set designs
for Max Reinhardt's production of "Ghosts"
at the new intimate stage at Deutsches Theater
in Berlin. Ibsen assumed an increasingly more
important place in Munch's consciousness. "Self-portrait
with Bottle of Wine" from 1906 shows a powerless,
hunched over figure sitting alone at a table
in a claustrophobic cafe interior - a tragic
sight spiritually related to Osvald in Ibsen's
drama.
On commission Munch did a monumental
fantasy portrait of Freidrich Nietzsche, and
during several visits in Weimar he also did a
portrait of the late philosopher's sister, Elisabeth
Förster-Nietzsche.
New motifs from this period
show signs of a more extroverted orientation. "Bathing
Men" (1907-08) is a vigorous tribute to
vital manliness. However, his alcohol and mental
problems reached a critical point, and Munch
decided to spend eight months at a clinic in
Copenhagen. Norway finally opened its eyes to
his artistic talent, and he was awarded the Order
of St. Olav during his stay at the clinic.
Back in Norway
From 1909 and for the rest of
his life Munch resided in Norway. At first he
settled down in Kragerø, a coastal town
farther south. Here he painted several classic
winter landscapes and threw himself enthusiastically
into the competition for the decoration of the
University of Kristiania's new auditorium, the
Aula.
In 1912, Munch was given a prominent
place among pioneers of modern art at the large
Sonderbund exhibition in Cologne.
In Kragerø he built large
outdoor studios where he worked for several years
on the designs for Aula. After prolonged controversy
Munch's designs were finally accepted and installed
in the auditorium in 1916.
According to Munch himself,
the motifs in the Aula celebrate the "perpetual
forces of life". The background motif shows
a sunrise over the fjord, based on the view from
the property Munch rented in Kragerø.
The explosive composition may also be viewed
as a symbol of the boundless and life-giving
power of light. The large canvases "History"
and "Alma Mater" hang like pendants
in the Aula: an old man is sitting under a great
oak tree in a meagre and rugged landscape relating
the saga of mankind to a little boy, and in a
gentle and verdant landscape a woman is sitting
on a seashore with a child at her breast, while
bigger children are exploring the surroundings.
Besides alluding to the humanities and sciences,
the two "archetypal" motifs are expressions
of a male and female principle, a central opposition
in Munch's visual world.
Munch showed an interest in
the growing Labour Movement in several motifs
from this time, some of them monumental in character.
"Workers on Their Way Home" (1913-15)
is also a dynamic study of perspective and movement.
In 1916 Munch purchased the
property Ekely outside Kristiania (renamed Oslo
in 1924). Landscapes, people in harmony with
nature, horses and ploughing --these were the
motifs which were now portrayed in strong, clear
colours. Through fresh and spontaneous brushwork
he conveys a rough and sensuous tribute to sun,
air and the earth.
At Ekely Munch lived to a steadily
greater degree in self-chosen isolation, spartan,
surrounded only by his pictures. He was constantly
productive, but parted only reluctantly with "his
children". Arrangements were made to lend
the pictures to a number of international exhibitions.
In his later years Munch painted
a number of studies and compositions using a
model. Some of these have a vigorous and life-embracing
quality, while in others he continued to explore
the conflict-filled themes of the 1890s. He continued
to produce a considerable number of graphics,
including a number of lithographic portraits.
Before Munch died in January
1944, he had willed his large collection of pictures
and uncatalogued biographical and literary notes
to the City of Oslo. Consequently, the Munch
Museum, dedicated in 1963, has a unique collection
of Munch's art and other material which illuminates
all phases of the artistic process.
The National Gallery in Oslo
also has an exquisite Munch collection particularly
rich in main, early paintings. Major works are
also found in the Bergen Art Gallery.
The author of the article, Dr.
Frank Høifødt, born in 1951, had
worked for many years at the Munch Museum when
he earned his doctorate in 1995 with a thesis
on Munch's life and art anno 1900.
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Produced by Nytt fra Norge for
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The author is
responsible for the contents of the article.
©
Copyright 2006
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