Encyclopedia, Difference between revisions of "Edvard Munch" - New World
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Around the turn of the century, Munch worked to finish the ''Frieze''. He painted a number of pictures, several of them in larger format and to some extent highlighting 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 and his pessimistic philosophy of love. Motifs such as ''The Empty Cross'' and ''Golgotha'' (both c. 1900) reflect a metaphysical orientation, and also echo Munch's pious but fanatical upbringing. | Around the turn of the century, Munch worked to finish the ''Frieze''. He painted a number of pictures, several of them in larger format and to some extent highlighting 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 and his pessimistic philosophy of love. Motifs such as ''The Empty Cross'' and ''Golgotha'' (both c. 1900) reflect a metaphysical orientation, and also echo Munch's pious but fanatical upbringing. | ||
| − | + | [[Media:Munch vampire.jpg|''Vampire'']] (1893–94), [[Media:Munch Ashes.jpg|''Ashes'']] (1894), Other Frieze of Life themes are seen in the pictures ''Ashes'',''Vampire'' 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. | |
==Later life and legacy== | ==Later life and legacy== | ||
| − | In the 1930s and 1940s, the | + | ''The Frieze of Life'' themes recur throughout Munch's work, as in paintings such as ''The Sick Child'' a memorial to his deceased sister Sophie (1886.) He said once that this painting was a "breakthrough" for him and that "most of my later work had its origin in this picture." It was originally greeted with disdain by art critics; derision that would prove to be undaunting to Munch. |
| + | |||
| + | In the 1930s and 1940s, the National Socialists labeled Munch's paintings as "degenerate art", and removed his work from German museums. This deeply hurt Munch, who having lived in Berlin had come to feel that Germany was a second home. They were taken to Berlin to be auctioned. Norwegian art dealer Harald Holst Halvorsen acquired several of Munch's paintings, including the 1907 version of ''The Sick Child'', with the goal of returning them to Oslo. In 1939, it was purchased by Thomas Olsen and donated to the Tate Gallery collection in London.[2] | ||
Munch built himself a studio and simple house at Skøyen, [[Oslo]], and spent the last decades of his life there.<ref>Chipp, H.B. ''Theories of Modern Art: A Source Book by Artists and Critics'', page 114. [[University of California Press]], ISBN 0-520-05256-0</ref>He died there on January 23, 1944, about a month after his 80th birthday. He left 1,000 paintings, 15,400 prints, 4,500 drawings and watercolors, and six sculptures to the city of Oslo, which built the Munch Museum at [[Tøyen]]. The museum houses the broadest collection of his works. His works are also represented in major museums and galleries in Norway and abroad. | Munch built himself a studio and simple house at Skøyen, [[Oslo]], and spent the last decades of his life there.<ref>Chipp, H.B. ''Theories of Modern Art: A Source Book by Artists and Critics'', page 114. [[University of California Press]], ISBN 0-520-05256-0</ref>He died there on January 23, 1944, about a month after his 80th birthday. He left 1,000 paintings, 15,400 prints, 4,500 drawings and watercolors, and six sculptures to the city of Oslo, which built the Munch Museum at [[Tøyen]]. The museum houses the broadest collection of his works. His works are also represented in major museums and galleries in Norway and abroad. | ||
Revision as of 20:59, 29 January 2007
Edvard Munch (IPA: [ˈɛdvɑɖ muŋk], December 12, 1863 - January 23, 1944) was a Norwegian Symbolist painter, printmaker, and graphic artist, who was also an important forerunner in the school of art known as Expressionism.
The Scream (1893; originally called Despair), — is perhaps his most famous work and - stolen twice - it is one of the most recognizable and iconic images in Modern art. The Scream was one of several pieces in a series titled The Frieze of Life, in which Munch explored the themes of life, love, fear, and death.
Munch's art vividly - and often disturbingly - reflects the angst, dread, and separation that modern man feels not only from God, but from his natural surroundings, as he embarks on the Twentieth Century - one that was to be rife with world war, conflict, and the stress of modern day industrialism. Although his paintings were initially met with controversy, Munch is currently regarded as one of Scandinavia's most influential artists.
Biography
Childhood
Munch was born in Ådalsbruk, Norway, and grew up in Kristiania (now Oslo). He was related to painter Jacob Munch (1776 - 1839) and the historian Peter Andreas Munch (1810 - 1863). He lost his mother, Laura Cathrine Munch, née Bjølstad, to tuberculosis in 1868, and his older and favorite sister Sophie to the same disease in 1877. Ultimately his father, Christian Munch, died young, as well, in 1889. Munch also had a brother, (Peter) Andreas (1865) and two younger sisters Laura Cathrine (1867), Inger Marie (1868). After their mother's death, the Munch siblings were raised by their father, who instilled in his children a deep-rooted fear by repeatedly telling them that if they sinned in any way, they would be doomed to hell without the chance of forgiveness. One of Munch's younger sisters was diagnosed with mental illness at an early age. Munch himself was often sickly as a child causing him to later refelct, "Sickness, insanity and death were the angels that surrounded my cradle and they have followed me throughout my life."
Studies and influences
Munch's father discouraged him from studying art, so instead in 1879, he enrolled in a technical college to study engineering. However, amidst health problems, he left school to study painting. He formed a comraderie with a circle of bohemian artists strongly influenced by the anarchist writer Hans Jaeger. Subsequently, Munch enrolled at the Royal School of Art and Design of Kristiania and studied under the naturalistic painter Christian Krohg.
While stylistically influenced by the postimpressionists, Munch's subject matter is symbolist in content and depicts a state of mind rather than an external reality. Interested in portraying not just a random slice of reality, but situations teeming with emotional substance and expressive energy, Munch carefully calculated his compositions to create a tense atmosphere. He once said of his art:
- "My art is rooted in a single reflection. Why am I not as others are? Why was there a curse on my cradle? Why did I come into the world without any choice." He further noted, "My art gives meaning to my life."
Although technically he built on earlier artists such as Van Gogh and Gauguin, his work also marked a radical departure from starry skies, sunflowers and colorful landscapes. It was to be the psychological content of his paintings that was to set him apart from other artists of the era.
Career
Munch's expressive medium with his artwork evolved throughout his life. In the 1880s, Munch's style was both naturalistic, as seen in Portrait of Hans Jæger, and impressionistic, as in (Rue Lafayette). In 1892, Munch formulated his characteristic, and original blending of styles, known as synthetism, which emphasizes two-dimensional flat patterns. This style can be seen in his work The Scream, painted in 1893, which demonstrates the heavy use of color as a bold symbolic element.
During the 1890s, Munch painted a shallow pictorial space, as a minimal backdrop for his frontal figures. His subjects' poses were arranged to produce reflections of their state of mind and psychological feelings. In the picture (Ashes), the figures impart a looming, stationary quality. Munch's figures almost appear to play roles on a theatre stage. In (Death in the Sick-Room), the people represent various emotions; each character embodying a single psychological state. As in The Scream, Munch's men and women appear more symbolic than realistic.
In 1892, the Union of Berlin Artists invited Munch to exhibit at an exhibition in the Prussian capital. His paintings evoked bitter controversy, and after one week the exhibition closed. However, controversy brought Munch new opportunity as well. In Germany, Munch became involved with an international circle of writers, artists, and critics. During this period he was strongly influenced by the Swedish dramatist August Strindberg who supported his style of art.
While in Berlin, Munch experimented with a variety of new media (photography, lithography, and woodcuts), in many instances re-working his older paintings. Munch often painted several versions of his pictures, and had prints made of them, in an attempt to make his work accessible to a larger public.
In autumn of 1908, Munch's reportedly suffered a nervous breakdown and, returning to Scandinavia, entered a clinic in Copenhagen. The therapy Munch received while there seemed to bring about a change in his creative orientation and works after this period are resultantly less pessimistic. Re-settled in his native country, he sought inspiration in the Norwegian landscape and from the simple pleasures and mundane work of farmers and laborers.
Frieze of Life — A Poem about Life, Love and Death
At the Berlin exhibition Munch displayed, among other pieces, six paintings entitled Study for a Series: Love. These, paintings were to become a part of a series he would title the Frieze of Life - A Poem about Life, Love and Death. Although, completed in 1893, it was not displayed as an entire unit until 1902 when it was shown at the Berlin secessionist exhibition. Frieze of Life motifs such as those shown in The Storm and Moonlight are steeped in melancholy. Other themes illuminate the dark and foreboding side of love, such as Rose and Amelie and Vampire. These pictures express the conflicted - even tormented - feelings Munch had towards women due to his unsatsifying love affairs.
In Death in the Sickroom (1893), the subject is the death of his sister Sophie. The dramatic focus of the painting portrays his entire family as a series of separate and disconnected figures of sorrow. In 1894, he enlarged the range of this motif by adding Anxiety, Ashes, Madonna and Women in Three Stages.
Around the turn of the century, Munch worked to finish the Frieze. He painted a number of pictures, several of them in larger format and to some extent highlighting 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 and his pessimistic philosophy of love. Motifs such as The Empty Cross and Golgotha (both c. 1900) reflect a metaphysical orientation, and also echo Munch's pious but fanatical upbringing.
Vampire (1893–94), Ashes (1894), Other Frieze of Life themes are seen in the pictures Ashes,Vampire 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.
Later life and legacy
The Frieze of Life themes recur throughout Munch's work, as in paintings such as The Sick Child a memorial to his deceased sister Sophie (1886.) He said once that this painting was a "breakthrough" for him and that "most of my later work had its origin in this picture." It was originally greeted with disdain by art critics; derision that would prove to be undaunting to Munch.
In the 1930s and 1940s, the National Socialists labeled Munch's paintings as "degenerate art", and removed his work from German museums. This deeply hurt Munch, who having lived in Berlin had come to feel that Germany was a second home. They were taken to Berlin to be auctioned. Norwegian art dealer Harald Holst Halvorsen acquired several of Munch's paintings, including the 1907 version of The Sick Child, with the goal of returning them to Oslo. In 1939, it was purchased by Thomas Olsen and donated to the Tate Gallery collection in London.[2]
Munch built himself a studio and simple house at Skøyen, Oslo, and spent the last decades of his life there.[1]He died there on January 23, 1944, about a month after his 80th birthday. He left 1,000 paintings, 15,400 prints, 4,500 drawings and watercolors, and six sculptures to the city of Oslo, which built the Munch Museum at Tøyen. The museum houses the broadest collection of his works. His works are also represented in major museums and galleries in Norway and abroad.
Munch appears on the Norwegian 1,000 Kroner note along with pictures inspired by his artwork. [1]
- "From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity."
- —Edvard Munch
Trivia
- One version of The Scream was stolen in 1994, another in 2004. Both have since been recovered, but one version sustained damage during the theft which is too extensive to repair completely.
- After the Cultural Revolution in the People's Republic of China ended, Munch was the first Western artist to have his pictures exhibited at the National Gallery in Beijing.
- Some art historians believe that the red sky in the background of The Scream reflects the unusually intense sunsets seen throughout the world following the 1883 eruption of the Indonesian volcano Krakatoa.
- Solefald wrote a song about him on their 2003 album In Harmonia Universali, titled "Christiania (Edvard Munch Commemoration)"
- In October 2006, the woodcut Two people. The lonely (To mennesker. De ensomme) set a new record for his engravings when it was sold at an auction in Oslo for 8.1 million NOK (1.27 million USD). It also set a new record for the highest price payed in auction in Norway. [2]
- Google celebrated his birthday in 2006 by changing the logo on the main page to a tribute to his well-known painting The Scream.
- On an episode of "The Simpsons," the town bullies steal The Scream as a side gag.
Further reading
- Sue Prideaux, Behind the Scream (London: Yale University Press, 2006) Winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography, 2006 ISBN 0300110243
- Reinhold Heller, Munch. His life and work ISBN 0719541166 (London: Murray, 1984).
- Gustav Schiefler, Verzeichnis des graphischen Werks Edvard Munchs bis 1906 (Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1907).
- Gustav Schiefler, Edvard Munch. Das graphische Werk 1906 - 1926 (Berlin: Euphorion, 1928).
- J. Gill Holland The Private Journals of Edvard Munch: We Are Flames Which Pour out of the Earth (University of Wisconsin Press 2005)
- Edward Dolnick The Rescue Artist: A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece (HarperCollins, 2005) (Recounts the 1994 theft of The Scream from Norway's National Gallery in Oslo, and its eventual recovery.)
List of major works
- 1892 - Evening on Karl Johan
- 1893 - The Scream
- 1894 - Ashes
- 1894-95 - Madonna
- 1895 - Puberty
- 1895 - Self-Portrait with Burning Cigarette
- 1895 - Death in the Sickroom
- 1899-1900 - The Dance of Life
- 1899-1900 - The Dead Mother
- 1940-42 - Self Portrait: Between Clock and Bed
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Fineman, Mia (Nov. 22, 2005). "Existential Superstar". Slate (magazine).
Notes
- ↑ Chipp, H.B. Theories of Modern Art: A Source Book by Artists and Critics, page 114. University of California Press, ISBN 0-520-05256-0
External links
- Biography from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
- The Munch Museum
- Gallery Munch - Løten
- Munch at artcyclopedia
- Interpol's page about the stolen works of art
- Rothenberg A. Bipolar illness, creativity, and treatment. Psychiatr Q. 2001 Summer;72(2):131-47.
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