2 edvard munch comp

8/13/2019 2 Edvard Munch Comp

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Munch Museum

Works from the collection


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The Scream

1893


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The red virginia creeper, which gives the picture its title, appears not only to be organically but also biologically alive. Itknots itself around the house almost in a stranglehold as if part of a macabre death. A tragedy appears to have taken

place in the house, a tragedy the man in the foreground sees in his mind`s eye.


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Death in the Sickroom goes back to the memory of the death of Munch`s beloved sister, Sophie. Otherwisethe models are depicted at the ages they were when the motif was painted, not their ages when the event

took place. Here Munch may have wished to express a dimension of contemporaneousness -

demonstrating that the family would always be affected by Sophie`s death.


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There are two painted versions of The Voice, one in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the other in theMunch Museum. The first version was exhibited in Berlin in 1893 as the first picture in a series jointly

entitled Study for a Series: Love. These love motifs were the first works in what would later be known as

The Frieze of Life.


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The background landscape, inside Kristiania Fjord, is the same that we find inThe Scream. The pale, ghostly faces come toward us like a procession of ghosts,

in a line which could almost be seen as a funeral cortge.


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The motif is burnished and scraped out with a burnisher, and the plate is then inked with the finestnuances in blue, yellow and red using dollies. A total of 11 colour prints of this aquatint are known, and all

differ in some respect. The female figure in white appears in several of Munch's works, and represents

innocence, purity and beauty.


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The picture is one of the series of landscapes from the turn of the century, with rhythmic and lyrical tonesin surfaces, colours and lines, bearing hardly any traces of the earlier nervous energy and restless

experimentation. The tentative observation of nature is portrayed in a classic, simplified technique in the

synthesising art nouveau style of the time.


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In Self-Portrait with a Bottle of Wine Munch is equally melancholic and passive, as he appears self-confident in Self-Portrait with Brushes. The entire position, the relaxed hands and the resigned expression,

indicate that all power has deserted him. The atmosphere presses down on the artist, conveying an

oppressive feeling of melancholy and loneliness.


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In this self-portrait Munchreveals sides of his life

which most other peoplewish to keep hidden:

anxiety and restlessness as

a result of loneliness. Theuncurtained windows andthe bare room emphasisethe feeling of loneliness

and isolation.


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In the group of starry night motifs seen from Munch's veranda at Ekely, wherethe blue winter night conveys a fateful sense of melancholy, we see how Munch

makes use of rounded shapes in constructing the painting. The shadow in theforeground - in all likelihood Munch's own shadow - expresses loneliness in theface of death.

2 edvard munch comp

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