The Scream (Norwegian: Skrik) is the popular name given to each of four versions of a composition, created as both paintings and pastels, by the Expressionist artist Edvard Munch between 1893 and 1910. Der Schrei der Natur (The Scream of Nature) is the title Munch gave to these works, all of which show a figure with an agonized expression against a landscape with a tumultuous red sky. The landscape in the background is the Oslofjord, viewed from Ekeberg, Oslo, Norway.

Edvard Munch created the four versions in various media. The National Gallery, Oslo, holds one of two painted versions (1893, shown at right). The Munch Museum holds the other painted version (1910, see gallery) and a pastel version from 1893.

The fourth version (pastel, 1895) sold for $119,922,500 at Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern art auction on 2 May 2012 to a private buyer,^[1] the highest nominal price paid for a painting at auction.^[2] (The Card Players by Paul Cézanne was sold privately in 2011 for between $250 and 300 million.^[3])

Also in 1895, Munch created a lithograph stone of the image. Of the lithograph prints produced by Munch, several examples survive.^[4] Only approximately four dozen prints were made before the original stone was resurfaced by the printer in Munch's absence.^[5]

The Scream has been the target of several high-profile art thefts. In 1994, the version in the National Gallery was stolen. It was recovered several months later. In 2004, both The Scream and Madonna were stolen from the Munch Museum, and recovered two years later.

Sources of inspiration[link]

Edvard Munch, 1921

The original German title given to the work by Munch is, Der Schrei der Natur (The Scream of Nature). The Norwegian word skrik usually is translated as scream, but is cognate with the English shriek. Occasionally, the painting also has been called, The Cry.

In his diary in an entry headed, Nice 22.01.1892, Munch described his inspiration for the image:

One evening I was walking along a path, the city was on one side and the fjord below. I felt tired and ill. I stopped and looked out over the fjord—the sun was setting, and the clouds turning blood red. I sensed a scream passing through nature; it seemed to me that I heard the scream. I painted this picture, painted the clouds as actual blood. The color shrieked. This became The Scream.^[6]

This memory was later rendered by Munch as a poem, which he hand-painted onto the frame of the 1895 pastel version of the work:

I was walking along a path with two friends – the sun was setting – suddenly the sky turned blood red – I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence – there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city – my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety – and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.^[7]

Among theories advanced to account for the reddish sky in the background is the artist's memory of the effects of the powerful volcanic eruption of Krakatoa, which deeply tinted sunset skies red in parts of the Western hemisphere for months during 1883 and 1884, about a decade before Munch painted The Scream.^[8] This explanation has been disputed by scholars, who note that Munch was an expressive painter and was not primarily interested in literal renderings of what he had seen. Alternatively, it has been suggested that the proximity of both a slaughterhouse and a lunatic asylum to the site depicted in the painting may have offered some inspiration.^[9] The scene was identified as being the view from a road overlooking Oslo, the Oslofjord and Hovedøya, from the hill of Ekeberg. At the time of painting the work, Munch's manic depressive sister Laura Catherine was a patient at the asylum at the foot of Ekeberg.^{[citation needed]}

In 1978, the Munch scholar Robert Rosenblum suggested that the strange, sexless creature in the foreground of the painting was inspired by a Peruvian mummy, which Munch could have seen at the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris. This mummy, which was buried in a fetal position with its hands alongside its face, also struck the imagination of Munch's friend Paul Gauguin: it stood as a model for the central figure in his painting, Human misery (Grape harvest at Arles) and for the old woman at the left in his painting, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?. More recently, an Italian anthropologist speculated that Munch might have seen a mummy in Florence's Museum of Natural History, which bears an even more striking resemblance to the painting.^[10]

The imagery of The Scream has been compared to that which an individual suffering from depersonalization disorder experiences, a feeling of distortion of the environment and one's self.^[11]

Thefts[link]

The Scream has been the target of a number of thefts and theft attempts. Some damage has been suffered in these thefts.

On 22 February 1994, the same day as the opening of the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, four men broke into the National Gallery and stole its version of The Scream, leaving a note reading "Thanks for the poor security".^[12] The painting had been moved down to a second-story gallery,^[13] as part of the Olympic festivities. The presence of international media covering the games made the theft a sensation.^[14] After the gallery refused to pay a ransom demand of US$1 million in March 1994, Norwegian police set up a sting operation with assistance from the British police (SO10) and the Getty Museum and the painting was recovered undamaged on 7 May 1994.^[13] In January 1996, four men were convicted in connection with the theft, including Pål Enger, who had been convicted of stealing Munch's Vampire in 1988.^[15] They were released on appeal on legal grounds: the British agents involved in the sting operation had entered Norway under false identities.^[16]

Another version of The Scream was stolen on 22 August 2004, during daylight hours, when masked gunmen entered the Munch Museum in Oslo and stole two paintings by Munch, Scream and Madonna.^[17] A bystander photographed the robbers as they escaped to their car with the artwork (shown at right). On 8 April 2005, Norwegian police arrested a suspect in connection with the theft, but the paintings remained missing and it was rumored that they had been burned by the thieves to destroy evidence.^[18][19] On 1 June 2005, with four suspects already in custody in connection with the crime, the city government of Oslo offered a reward of 2 million Norwegian krone (roughly US$313,500 or €231,200) for information that could help locate the paintings.^[20] Although the paintings remained missing, six men went on trial in early 2006, variously charged with either helping to plan or participating in the robbery. Three of the men were convicted and sentenced to between four and eight years in prison in May 2006, and two of the convicted, Bjørn Hoen and Petter Tharaldsen, were also ordered to pay compensation of 750 million kroner (roughly US$117.6 million or €86.7 million) to the City of Oslo.^[21] The Munch Museum was closed for ten months for a security overhaul.^[22]

On 31 August 2006, Norwegian police announced that a police operation had recovered both The Scream and Madonna, but did not reveal detailed circumstances of the recovery. The paintings were said to be in a better-than-expected condition. "We are 100 percent certain they are the originals," police chief Iver Stensrud told a news conference. "The damage was much less than feared."^[23][24] Munch Museum director Ingebjørg Ydstie confirmed the condition of the paintings, saying it was much better than expected and that the damage could be repaired.^[25] The Scream had moisture damage on the lower left corner, while Madonna suffered several tears on the right side of the painting as well as two holes in Madonna's arm.^[26] Before repairs and restoration began, the paintings were put on public display by the Munch Museum beginning 27 September 2006. During the five-day exhibition, 5,500 people viewed the damaged paintings. The conserved works went back on display on 23 May 2008, when the exhibition "Scream and Madonna — Revisited" at the Munch Museum in Oslo displayed the paintings together.^[27] Some damage to "The Scream" may prove impossible to repair, but the overall integrity of the work has not been compromised.^[28][29]

Record sale at auction[link]

The 1895 pastel-on-board version of the painting, owned by Norwegian businessman Petter Olsen, sold at Sotheby's for a record US$120 million at auction on 2 May 2012.^[30] The bidding started at $40 million and lasted for over 12 minutes when an unnamed bidder by phone gave the final offer of US$119,922,500, including the buyer's premium. Sotheby's said the painting was the most colorful and vibrant of the four versions painted by Munch and the only version whose frame was hand-painted by the artist to include his poem, detailing the work's inspiration.^[31] After the sale, Sotheby's auctioneer Tobias Meyer said the painting was "worth every penny", adding: "It is one of the great icons of art in the world and whoever bought it should be congratulated."^[32]

The previous record for the most expensive work of art sold at auction had been held by Picasso's Nude, Green Leaves and Bust, which went for US$106.5 million at Christie's two years prior on 4 May 2010.^[33] When accounting for inflation, the highest price paid for art at an auction is still held by Van Gogh's Portrait of Dr. Gachet, which sold for $82.5 million in 1990, or about $147 million 2012 dollars.^[34] There have been reports that The Card Players, by Cézanne, sold privately for $250m in 2011,^[35][3] which can not be verified for the establishment of a record price.

In popular culture[link]

In the late twentieth century, The Scream was imitated, parodied, and outright copies have been made following its copyright expiration, which led to it acquiring an iconic status in popular culture. It was used on the cover of some editions of Arthur Janov's book The Primal Scream.^[36] In 1983–1984, pop artist Andy Warhol made a series of silk prints copying works by Munch, including The Scream. His stated intention was to desacralize the painting by making it into a mass-reproducible object. Munch had already begun that process, however, by making a lithograph of the work for reproduction. Erró's ironic and irreverent treatment of Munch's masterpiece in his acrylic paintings The Second Scream (1967) and Ding Dong (1979) is considered a characteristic of post-modern art.^[37] Cartoonist Gary Larson included a "tribute" to The Scream (entitled The Howl) in his Wiener Dog Art painting and cartoon compilation, in which the central figure is replaced by a howling dachshund. The Scream has been used in advertising, in cartoons, such as The Simpsons, films, and on television. The principal alien antagonists depicted in the 2011 BBC series of Doctor Who, named "The Silence", have an appearance partially based on The Scream.^[38] The Ghostface mask worn by the primary antagonists of the Scream series of horror movies is based on the painting, and was created by Fun World employee, Brigitte Sleiertin, as a Halloween costume, prior to being discovered by Marianne Maddalena and Wes Craven for the film.^[39]

Gallery[link]

• Munch The Scream lithography.png

  Munch translated The Scream into a lithograph in 1895

• The Scream2.jpg

  This version, executed in 1910 in tempera on cardboard, was stolen from the Munch Museum in 2004, and recovered in 2006

References[link]

External links[link]

• Munch Museum, Oslo, Norway
• Gallery Munch – Løten, Norway
• Edvard Munch – Biography & Paintings
• Rothenberg A (2001). "Bipolar illness, creativity, and treatment". Psychiatr Q 72 (2): 131–47. DOI:10.1023/A:1010367525951. PMID 11433879. http://www.kluweronline.com/art.pdf?issn=0033-2720&volume=72&page=131. 
• Fineman, Mia (22 November 2005). "Existential Superstar". Slate (magazine).
• Munch and The Scream – Discussion in the In Our Time series on the BBC.
• Coloring page you can print out

Edvard Munch
Munch in 1921
Born	(1863-12-12)12 December 1863 Ådalsbruk in Løten, Norway
Died	23 January 1944(1944-01-23) (aged 80) Oslo, Norway
Nationality	Norwegian
Field	Painting
Movement	Expressionism, Symbolism
Works	The Scream

Edvard Munch (Norwegian pronunciation: [ˈmʉŋk], 12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944)^[1] was a Norwegian painter and printmaker whose intensely evocative treatment of psychological themes built upon some of the main tenets of late 19th-century Symbolism and greatly influenced German Expressionism in the early 20th century. One of his most well-known works is The Scream of 1893.

Childhood[link]

Edvard Munch was born in a rustic farmhouse in the village of Ådalsbruk in Løten, to Christian Munch, the son of a priest. Christian was a doctor and medical officer who married Laura Catherine Bjølstad, a woman half his age, in 1861. Edvard had an elder sister, Johanne Sophie (born 1862), and three younger siblings: Peter Andreas (born 1865), Laura Catherine (born 1867), and Inger Marie (born 1868). Both Sophie and Edvard appear to have inherited their artistic talent from their mother. Edvard Munch was related to painter Jacob Munch (1776–1839) and historian Peter Andreas Munch (1810–1863).^[2]

The family moved to Christiania (now Oslo) in 1864 when Christian Munch was appointed medical officer at Akershus Fortress. Edvard's mother died of tuberculosis in 1868, as did Munch's favorite sister Johanne Sophie in 1877.^[3] After their mother's death, the Munch siblings were raised by their father and by their aunt Karen. Often ill for much of the winters and kept out of school, Edvard would draw to keep himself occupied, and received tutoring from his school mates and his aunt. Christian Munch also instructed his son in history and literature, and entertained the children with vivid ghost-stories and tales of Edgar Allan Poe.^[4]

Christian's positive behavior toward his children was overshadowed by his morbid pietism. Munch wrote, "My father was temperamentally nervous and obsessively religious—to the point of psychoneurosis. From him I inherited the seeds of madness. The angels of fear, sorrow, and death stood by my side since the day I was born."^[5] Christian reprimanded his children by telling them that their mother was looking down from heaven and grieving over their misbehavior. The oppressive religious milieu, plus Edvard's poor health and the vivid ghost stories, helped inspire macabre visions and nightmares in Edvard, who felt death constantly advancing on him.^[6] One of Munch's younger sisters was diagnosed with mental illness at an early age. Of the five siblings, only Andreas married, but he died a few months after the wedding. Munch would later write, "I inherited two of mankind's most frightful enemies—the heritage of consumption and insanity."^[7]

Christian Munch's military pay was very low, and his attempts at developing a private side practice failed, keeping his family in perennial poverty.^[3] They moved frequently from one sordid flat to another. Munch's early drawings and watercolors depicted these interiors, and the individual objects, such as medicine bottles and drawing implements, plus some landscapes. By his teens, art dominated Munch's interests.^[8] At thirteen, Munch had his first exposure to other artists at the newly formed Art Association, where he admired the work of the Norwegian landscape school. He returned to copy the paintings, and soon he began to paint in oils.^[9]

Studies and influences[link]

In 1879, Munch enrolled in a technical college to study engineering, where he excelled in physics, chemistry, and math. He learned scaled and perspective drawing, but frequent illnesses interrupted his studies.^[10] The following year, much to his father's disappointment, Munch left the college determined to become a painter. His father viewed art as an "unholy trade", and his neighbors reacted bitterly and sent him anonymous letters.^[11] In contrast to his father's rabid pietism, Munch adopted an undogmatic stance toward art, writing in his diary his simple goal: "in my art I attempt to explain life and its meaning to myself."^[10]

In 1881, Munch enrolled at the Royal School of Art and Design of Christiania, one of whose founders was his distant relative Jacob Munch. His teachers were sculptor Julius Middelthun and naturalistic painter Christian Krohg.^[12] That year, Munch demonstrated his quick absorption of his figure training at the Academy in his first portraits, including one of his father and his first self-portrait. In 1883, Munch took part in his first public exhibition and shared a studio with other students.^[13] His full-length portrait of Karl Jensen-Hjell, a notorious bohemian-about-town, earned a critic's dismissive response: "It is impressionism carried to the extreme. It is a travesty of art."^[14] Munch's nude paintings from this period survive only in sketches, except for Standing Nude (1887), perhaps confiscated by his father.^[15]

During these early years in his career, Munch experimented with many styles, including Naturalism and Impressionism. Some early works are reminiscent of Manet. Many of these attempts brought him unfavorable criticism from the press and garnered him constant rebukes by his father, who nonetheless provided him with small sums for living expenses.^[14] At one point, however, Munch's father, perhaps swayed by the negative opinion of Munch's cousin Edvard Diriks (an established, traditional painter), destroyed at least one painting (likely a nude) and refused to advance any more money for art supplies.^[16]

Munch also received his father's ire for his relationship with Hans Jæger, the local nihilist who lived by the code "a passion to destroy is also a creative passion" and who advocated suicide as the ultimate way to freedom.^[17] Munch came under his malevolent, anti-establishment spell. "My ideas developed under the influence of the bohemians or rather under Hans Jæger. Many people have mistakenly claimed that my ideas were formed under the influence of Strindberg and the Germans…but that is wrong. They had already been formed by then."^[18] At that time, contrary to many of the other bohemians, Munch was still respectful of women, as well as reserved and well-mannered, but he began to give in to the binge drinking and brawling of his circle. He was unsettled by the sexual revolution going on at the time and by the independent women around him. He later turned cynical concerning sexual matters, expressed not only in his behavior and his art, but in his writings as well, an example being a long poem called The City of Free Love.^[19] Still dependent on his family for many of his meals, Munch's relationship with his father remained tense over concerns about his bohemian life.

After numerous experiments, Munch concluded that the Impressionist idiom did not allow sufficient expression. He found it superficial and too akin to scientific experimentation. He felt a need to go deeper and explore situations brimming with emotional content and expressive energy. Under Jæger's commandment that Munch should "write his life", meaning that Munch should explore his own emotional and psychological state, Munch began a period of reflection and self-examination, recording his thoughts in his "soul's diary".^[20] This deeper perspective helped move him to a new view of his art. He wrote that his painting The Sick Child (1886), based on his sister's death, was his first "soul painting", his first break from Impressionism. The painting received a negative response from critics and from his family, and caused another "violent outburst of moral indignation" from the community.^[21] Only his friend Christian Krohg defended him:

He paints, or rather regards, things in a way that is different from that of other artists. He sees only the essential, and that, naturally, is all he paints. For this reason Munch's pictures are as a rule "not complete", as people are so delighted to discover for themselves. Oh, yes, they are complete. His complete handiwork. Art is complete once the artist has really said everything that was on his mind, and this is precisely the advantage Munch has over painters of the other generation, that he really knows how to show us what he has felt, and what has gripped him, and to this he subordinates everything else.^[22]

Munch continued to employ a variety of brushstroke technique and color palettes throughout the 1880s and early 1890s, as he struggled to define his style.^[23] His idiom continued to veer between naturalistic, as seen in Portrait of Hans Jæger, and impressionistic, as in Rue Lafayette. His Inger On the Beach (1889), which caused another storm of confusion and controversy, hints at the simplified forms, heavy outlines, sharp contrasts, and emotional content of his mature style to come.^[24] He began to carefully calculate his compositions to create tension and emotion. While stylistically influenced by the Post-Impressionists, what evolved was a subject matter which was symbolist in content, depicting a state of mind rather than an external reality. In 1889, Munch presented his first one-man show of nearly all his works to date. The recognition it received led to a two-year state scholarship to study in Paris under French painter Léon Bonnat.^[25]

Paris[link]

Munch arrived in Paris during the festivities of the Exposition Universelle (1889) and roomed with two fellow Norwegian artists. His picture, Morning (1884), was displayed at the Norwegian pavilion.^[26] He spent his mornings at Bonnat's busy studio (which included live female models) and afternoons at the exhibition, galleries, and museums (where students were to make copies).^[27] Munch recorded little enthusiasm for Bonnat's drawing lessons—"It tires and bores me—it's numbing"—but enjoyed the master's commentary during museum trips.^[28][29]

Munch was enthralled by the vast display of modern European art, including the works of three artists who would prove influential: Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec—all notable for how they used color to convey emotion.^[29] Munch was particularly inspired by Gauguin's "reaction against realism" and his credo that "art was human work and not an imitation of Nature", a belief earlier stated by Whistler.^[30] As one of his Berlin friends stated later about Munch, "he need not make his way to Tahiti to see and experience the primitive in human nature. He carries his own Tahiti within him."^[31]

That December, his father died, leaving Munch's family destitute. He returned home and arranged a large loan from a wealthy Norwegian collector when wealthy relatives failed to help, and assumed financial responsibility for his family from then on.^[32] Christian's death depressed him and he was plagued by suicidal thoughts: "I live with the dead—my mother, my sister, my grandfather, my father…Kill yourself and then it's over. Why live?"^[33] Munch's paintings of the following year included sketchy tavern scenes and a series of bright cityscapes in which he experimented with the pointillist style of Georges Seurat.^[34]

Berlin[link]

By 1892, Munch formulated his characteristic, and original, Synthetist aesthetic, as seen in Melancholy, in which color is the symbol-laden element. In 1892, Adelsteen Normann, on behalf of the Union of Berlin Artists, invited Munch to exhibit at its November exhibition,^[35] the society's first one-man exhibition. However, his paintings evoked bitter controversy (dubbed "The Munch Affair") and after one week the exhibition closed.^[35] Munch was pleased with the "great commotion", and wrote in a letter: "Never have I had such an amusing time—it's incredible that something as innocent as painting should have created such a stir."^[36]

In Berlin, Munch involved himself in an international circle of writers, artists and critics, including the Swedish dramatist and leading intellectual August Strindberg, whom he painted in 1892. During his four years in Berlin, Munch sketched out most of the ideas that would comprise his major work, The Frieze of Life, first designed for book illustration but later expressed in paintings.^[37] He sold little, but made some income from charging entrance fees to view his controversial paintings.^[38] Already, Munch was showing a reluctance to part with his paintings, which he termed his "children".

His other paintings, including casino scenes, show a simplification of form and detail which marked his early mature style.^[39] Munch also began to favor a shallow pictorial space and a minimal backdrop for his frontal figures. Since poses were chosen to produce the most convincing images of states of mind and psychological conditions, as in Ashes, the figures impart a monumental, static quality. Munch's figures appear to play roles on a theatre stage (Death in the Sick-Room), whose pantomime of fixed postures signify various emotions; since each character embodies a single psychological dimension, as in The Scream, Munch's men and women now appear more symbolic than realistic. He wrote, "No longer should interiors be painted, people reading and women knitting: there would be living people, breathing and feeling, suffering and loving."^[40]

[edit] The Scream

Painted in 1893, The Scream is Munch's most famous work and one of the most recognizable paintings in all art. It has been widely interpreted as representing the universal anxiety of modern man.^[40] Painted with broad bands of garish color and highly simplified forms, and employing a high viewpoint, the agonized figure is reduced to a garbed skull in the throes of an emotional crisis. With this painting, Munch met his stated goal of "the study of the soul, that is to say the study of my own self".^[41] Munch wrote of how the painting came to be: "I was walking down the road with two friends when the sun set; suddenly, the sky turned as red as blood. I stopped and leaned against the fence, feeling unspeakably tired. Tongues of fire and blood stretched over the bluish black fjord. My friends went on walking, while I lagged behind, shivering with fear. Then I heard the enormous, infinite scream of nature."^[42] He later described the personal anguish behind the painting, "for several years I was almost mad… You know my picture, 'The Scream?' I was stretched to the limit—nature was screaming in my blood… After that I gave up hope ever of being able to love again."^[43]

In summing up the painting's impact, author Martha Tedeschi has stated: "Whistler's Mother, Wood's American Gothic, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Edvard Munch's The Scream have all achieved something that most paintings—regardless of their art historical importance, beauty, or monetary value—have not: they communicate a specific meaning almost immediately to almost every viewer. These few works have successfully made the transition from the elite realm of the museum visitor to the enormous venue of popular culture."^[44]

The Scream has four versions: three paintings (1893, 1895 and 1910), and one lithograph (1895). The 1910 painting was stolen in 2004, and recovered in 2006 with limited damage. The 1895 painting sold at auction on 2 May 2012 for US$119,922,500, including commission.^[45]

[edit] Frieze of Life – A Poem about Life, Love and Death

In December 1893, Unter den Linden in Berlin held an exhibition of Munch's work, showing, among other pieces, six paintings entitled Study for a Series: Love. This began a cycle he later called the Frieze of Life – A Poem about Life, Love and Death. "Frieze of Life" motifs such as The Storm and Moonlight are steeped in atmosphere. Other motifs illuminate the nocturnal side of love, such as Rose and Amelie and Vampire. In Death in the Sickroom, the subject is the death of his sister Sophie, which he re-did in many future variations. The dramatic focus of the painting, portraying his entire family, is dispersed in a series of separate and disconnected figures of sorrow. In 1894, he enlarged the spectrum of motifs by adding Anxiety, Ashes, Madonna and Women in Three Stages (from innocence to old age).^[46]

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 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 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 pietistic upbringing. The entire Frieze showed for the first time at the secessionist exhibition in Berlin in 1902.^[47]

"The Frieze of Life" themes recur throughout Munch's work but find their strongest outpouring in the mid-1890s. In sketches, paintings, pastels and prints, he taps the depths of his feelings to examine his major motifs: the stages of life, the femme fatale, the hopelessness of love, anxiety, infidelity, jealousy, sexual humiliation, and separation in life and death.^[48] These themes find expression in paintings such as The Sick Child (1885), Love and Pain (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 (see Puberty and Love and Pain) or as the cause of great longing, jealousy and despair (see Separation, Jealousy and Ashes).

Munch often uses shadows and rings of color around his figures to emphasize an aura of fear, menace, anxiety, or sexual intensity.^[49] These paintings have been interpreted as reflections of the artist's sexual anxieties, though it could also be argued that they are a better representation of his turbulent relationship with love itself and his general pessimism regarding human existence.^[50] Many of these sketches and paintings were done in several versions, such as Madonna, Hands and Puberty, and also transcribed as wood-block prints and lithographs. Munch hated to part with his paintings because he thought of his work as a single body of expression. So to capitalize on his production and make some income, he turned to graphic arts to reproduce many of his most famous paintings, including those in this series.^[51] Munch admitted to the personal goals of his work but he also offered his art to a wider purpose, "My art is really a voluntary confession and an attempt to explain to myself my relationship with life—it is, therefore, actually a sort of egoism, but I am constantly hoping that through this I can help others achieve clarity."^[52]

Still attracting strongly negative reactions, in the 1890s Munch did begin to receive some understanding of his artistic goals, as one critic wrote, "With ruthless contempt for form, clarity, elegance, wholeness, and realism, he paints with intuitive strength of talent the most subtle visions of the soul."^[53] One of his great supporters in Berlin was Walther Rathenau, later the German foreign minister, who greatly contributed to his success.

Paris and Christiania[link]

In 1896, Munch moved to Paris, where he focused on graphic representations of his "Frieze of Life" themes. He further developed his woodcut and lithographic technique. Munch's Self-Portrait With Skeleton Arm (1895) is done with an etching needle-and-ink method also used by Paul Klee.^[54] Munch also produced multi-colored versions of "The Sick Child" which sold well, as well as several nudes and multiple versions of Kiss (1892)^[54] Many of the Parisian critics still considered Munch's work "violent and brutal" but his exhibitions received serious attention and good attendance.^[55] His financial situation improved considerably and in 1897, Munch bought himself a summer house, a small fisherman's cabin built in the late 18th century, in the small town of Åsgårdstrand in Norway. He dubbed this home the "Happy House" and returned here almost every summer for the next 20 years.^[56]

Munch returned to Christiania in 1897 where he also received grudging acceptance, where one critic wrote, "A fair number of these pictures have been exhibited before. In my opinion these improve on acquaintance."^[56] In 1899, at the age of thirty-four, Munch began an intimate relationship with Tulla Larsen, a "liberated" upper-class woman. They traveled to Italy together and upon returning, Munch began another fertile period in his art, which included landscapes and his final painting in "The Frieze of Life" series, The Dance of Life (1899).^[57] Larsen was eager for marriage, and Munch begged off. His drinking and poor health reinforced his fears, as he wrote in the third person, "Ever since he was a child he had hated marriage. His sick and nervous home had given him the feeling that he had no right to get married."^[58] Munch almost gave in to Tulla, but fled from her in 1900, also turning away from her considerable fortune, and moved to Berlin.^[58] His Girls on the Jetty, created in eighteen different versions, demonstrated the theme of feminine youth without negative connotations.^[51] In 1902, he displayed his works thematically at the hall of the Berlin Succession, producing "a symphonic effect—it made a great stir—a lot of antagonism—and a lot of approval."^[59] The Berlin critics were beginning to appreciate Munch's work even though the public still found his work alien and strange.

The good press coverage gained Munch the attention of influential patrons Albert Kollman and Max Linde. He described the turn of events in his diary, "After twenty years of struggle and misery forces of good finally come to my aid in Germany—and a bright door opens up for me."^[60] However, despite this positive change, Munch's self-destructive and erratic behavior involved him first with a violent quarrel with another artist, then with an accidental shooting in the presence of Tulla Larsen, who had returned for a brief reconciliation, which injured two of his fingers. She finally left him and married a younger colleague of Munch. Munch took this as a betrayal, and he dwelled on the humiliation for some time to come, channeling some of the bitterness into new paintings.^[61] His paintings Still Life (The Murderess) and The Death of Marat I, done in 1906-7, clearly reference the shooting incident and the emotional after effects.^[62]

In 1903-4, Munch exhibited in Paris where the coming Fauvists, famous for their boldly false colors, likely saw his works and might have found inspiration in them. When the Fauves held their own exhibit in 1906, Munch was invited and displayed his works with theirs.^[63] After studying the sculpture of Rodin, Munch may have experimented with plasticine as an aid to design, but he produced little sculpture.^[64] During this time, Munch received many commissions for portraits and prints which improved his usually precarious financial condition.^[65] After an earlier period of landscapes, in 1907 he turned his attention again to human figures and situations.^[66]

Breakdown and recovery[link]

However, in the autumn of 1908, Munch's anxiety, compounded by excessive drinking and brawling, had become acute. As he wrote later, "My condition was verging on madness—it was touch and go."^[67] Subject to hallucinations and feelings of persecution, he entered the clinic of Dr. Daniel Jacobson. The therapy Munch received for the next eight months included diet and "electrification" (a treatment then fashionable for nervous conditions, not to be confused with electroconvulsive therapy).^[68] Munch's stay in hospital stabilized his personality, and after returning to Norway in 1909, his work became more colorful and less pessimistic. His portrait of Professor Jacobson, done in 1909, is one of Munch's best.^[67] Further brightening his mood, the general public of Christiania finally warmed to his work, and museums began to purchase his paintings. He was made a Knight of the Royal Order of St. Olav "for services in art".^[69] His first American exhibit was in 1912 in New York.^[70]

As part of his recovery, Dr. Jacobson advised Munch to only socialize with good friends and avoid public drinking. Munch followed this advice and in the process produced several full-length portraits of high quality of friends and patrons—honest portrayals devoid of flattery.^[71] He also created landscapes and scenes of people at work and play, using a new optimistic style—broad, loose brushstrokes of vibrant color with frequent use of white space and rare use of black—with only occasional references to his morbid themes. With more income, Munch was able to buy several properties giving him new vistas for his art and he was finally able to provide for his family.^[72]

Munch in 1933

The outbreak of World War I found Munch with divided loyalties, as he stated, "All my friends are German but it is France that I love."^[73] In the 1930s, his German patrons, many Jewish, lost their fortunes and some their lives during the rise of the Nazi movement.^[74] Munch found Norwegian printers to substitute for the Germans who had been printing his graphic work.^[75] Given his poor health history, during 1918 Munch felt himself lucky to have survived a bout of the Spanish Flu, the worldwide pandemic of that year.^[76]

Later years[link]

Munch spent most of his last two decades in solitude at his nearly self-sufficient estate in Ekely, at Skøyen, Oslo.^[77] Many of his late paintings celebrate farm life, including many where he used his work horse "Rousseau" as a model.^[78] Without any effort, Munch had a steady stream of female models, some of whom he may have had sexual relations with, and who were the subjects of numerous nude paintings.^[79] Munch occasionally left his home to paint murals on commission, including those done for the Freia chocolate factory.^[80]

To the end of his life, Munch continued to paint unsparing self-portraits, adding to his self-searching cycle of his life and his unflinching series of snapshots of his emotional and physical states. In the 1930s and 1940s, the Nazis labeled Munch's work "degenerate art" (along with Picasso, Paul Klee, Matisse, Gauguin and many other modern artists) and removed his 82 works from German museums.^[81] Adolf Hitler announced in 1937, "For all we care, those prehistoric Stone Age culture barbarians and art-stutterers can return to the caves of their ancestors and there can apply their primitive international scratching."^[82]

In 1940, the Germans invaded Norway and the Nazi party took over the government. Munch was seventy-six years old. With nearly an entire collection of his art in the second floor of his house, Munch lived in fear of a Nazi confiscation. Seventy-one of the paintings previously taken by the Nazis had found their way back to Norway through purchase by collectors (the other eleven were never recovered), including The Scream and The Sick Child, and they too were hidden from the Nazis.^[83]

Munch died in his house at Ekely near Oslo on 23 January 1944, about a month after his 80th birthday. His Nazi-orchestrated funeral left the impression with Norwegians that he was a Nazi sympathizer.^[84] The city of Oslo bought the Ekely estate from his heirs in 1946 and demolished his house in May 1960.^[85]

Legacy[link]

When Munch died, his remaining works were bequeathed to the city of Oslo, which built the Munch Museum at Tøyen (it opened in 1963). The museum hosts a collection of approximately 1,100 paintings, 4,500 drawings, and 18,000 prints, the broadest collection of his works in the world.^[87] The Munch Museum currently serves at Munch's official Estate,^[87] and has been active in responding to copyright infringements, as well as clearing copyright for the work, such as the appearance of Munch's The Scream in a 2006 M&M's advertisement campaign.^[88] The U.S. copyright representative for the Munch Museum and the Estate of Edvard Munch is the Artists Rights Society.^[89]

Munch's art was highly personalized and he did little teaching. His "private" symbolism was far more personal than that of other Symbolist painters such as Gustave Moreau and James Ensor. Nonetheless, Munch was highly influential, particularly with the German Expressionists, who followed his philosophy, "I do not believe in the art which is not the compulsive result of Man's urge to open his heart."^[40] Many of his paintings, including The Scream, have universal appeal in addition to their highly personal meaning.

Munch's works are now represented in numerous major museums and galleries in Norway and abroad. 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. His cabin "the Happy House" was given to the municipality of Åsgårdstrand in 1944 and is now a small Munch museum. The inventory is still exactly as he left it.

One version of The Scream was stolen from the National Gallery in 1994. In 2004, another version of The Scream, along with one of Madonna, were stolen from the Munch Museum in a daring daylight robbery. All were eventually recovered, but the paintings stolen in the 2004 robbery were extensively damaged. They have been meticulously restored and are on display again. Three Munch works were stolen from the Hotel Refsnes Gods in 2005; they were shortly recovered, although one of the works was damaged during the robbery.^[90]

In October 2006, the color woodcut Two people. The lonely (To mennesker. De ensomme) set a new record for his prints when it was sold at an auction in Oslo for 8.1 million NOK (1.27 million US$). It also set a record for the highest price paid in auction in Norway.^[91] On 3 November 2008, the painting Vampire set a new record for his paintings when it was sold for 38.162 million US$ at Sotheby's New York.

Munch appears on the Norwegian 1,000 kroner note, along with pictures inspired by his artwork.^[92]

In February 2012, a major Munch exhibition, "the Modern Eye", opened at the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; the exhibition was opened by Mette-Marit, Crown Princess of Norway.^[93]

In May 2012, "The Scream" sold for $119.9 million, becoming the most expensive artwork ever sold at an open auction.^[94]

List of major works[link]

• 1892 — Evening on Karl Johan
• 1893 — The Scream
• 1894 — Ashes
• 1894–1895 — 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
• 1940–1942 — Self Portrait: Between Clock and Bed

Gallery[link]

• TheSickChild-by-EdvardMunch-FourthVersion.jpg

  The Sick Child (1885–87). Tate Gallery, London.

• August Stindberg.jpg

  August Strindberg. 1892. Oil on canvas, 120 × 90 cm. Museum of Modern Art, Stockholm, Sweden

• The Scream.jpg

  The Scream. 1893. Oil, tempera, and pastel on cardboard. Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo

• Munch vampire.jpg

  Vampire. 1893–94. Oil on canvas. Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo

• Munch Ashes.jpg

  Ashes. 1894. Oil on canvas. 120.5 × 141 cm. Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo

• Edvard Munch - Madonna (1894-1895).jpg

  Madonna. 1894–95. Oil on canvas. 36 × 28 in. Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo

• Munch deathSickroom.jpg

  Death in the Sickroom. c. 1895. Oil on canvas. 59 × 66 in. Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo

• Edvard Munch, Lady from the sea.jpg

  Lady From the Sea (detail). 1896. Oil on canvas. 39½ × 126 in.

• Munch DanceOfLife.jpg

  The Dance of Life. 1899–1900. Oil on canvas, 49½ × 75 in. Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo

• Nietzsche-munch.jpg

  Portrait of Friedrich Nietzsche (1906)

• Munch death of marat I 1907.jpg

  Death of Marat I (1907)

See also[link]

• Edvard Munch, a 1974 biographical film

Notes[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Black, Peter; Bruteig, Magne, eds. (2009). Edvard Munch: Prints. London: Philip Wilson. ISBN 0-85667-677-2.  Catalogue of exhibition at the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow and the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin
• Dolnick, Edward (2005). The Rescue Artist: A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers. ISBN 0-06-053118-5.  Recounts the 1994 theft of The Scream from Norway's National Gallery in Oslo, and its eventual recovery
• Heller, Reinhold, ed. (1984). Munch: His Life and Work. London: Murray. ISBN 0-7195-4116-6. 
• Holland, J. Gill (2005). The Private Journals of Edvard Munch: We Are Flames Which Pour Out of the Earth. Madison, Wis: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0-299-19814-6. 
• Schiefler, Gustav (1907) (in German). Verzeichnis Des Graphischen Werks Edvard Munchs Bis 1906. Berlin: B. Cassirer. OCLC 39789318. 
• Schiefler, Gustav (1927) (in German). Das Graphische Werk Von Edvard Munch: 1906-1926. Berlin: Euphorion Verlag. OCLC 638113186. 
• Woll, Gerd (2009). Edvard Munch: Complete Paintings: Catalogue Raisonné. 4v. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-09345-8. 

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Edvard Munch

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Edvard Munch

• Edvard Munch at the Museum of Modern Art
• Edvard Munch
• The Dance of Life Site
• Edvard Munch Catalogue Raisonné
• Munch at Olga's Gallery — large online collection of Munch's works (over 200 paintings)
• Munch at artcyclopedia
• Edvard Munch at WikiGallery.org
• Exhibition "Edvard Munch L'oeil moderne" – Centre Pompidou, Paris 2011