Edvard Munch
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Edvard Munch
His works (paintings, woodcuts, lithographs, etc.) often feature distortion, vivid colors, rhythmic background patterns, and macabre figures, and involve neurotic themes of love, life, death, fear, anguish and alienation.
Munch's best-known works include the Frieze of Life (a series of which The Scream is a part) and The Sick Child.
Image: Munch's Self Portrait with Skeleton Arm (1895).
Edvard Munch: Behind the Scream
Edvard Munch: Behind the Scream
Amazon Price: $24.95 (as of 05/31/2012)
Most famous for his painting The Scream, an iconic expression of anxiety and a reflection of his inner torment, Edvard Munch strove to paint his "soul's diary," a quest Prideaux chronicles incisively in this fascinating study. The first comprehensive English-language biography of Munch (1863-1944) presents an in-depth artistic, intellectual and psychological portrait of the Norwegian artist. A novelist and art historian, Prideaux (Magnetic North) enlivens her narrative with excerpts from Munch's diaries, effectively tracing the roots of his mental suffering: his father's religious fanaticism, the death of his mother and favorite sister, the insanity of another sister and the fear that he would go mad himself. Prideaux also charts Munch's intellectual influences, his immersion in Nietzsche and Dostoyevski and his involvement with a group of radical Norwegian intellectuals, including Hans Jaeger (a founding father of existentialism), and his later notable association with playwright and painter August Strindberg. Munch's angst-ridden paintings, imbued with fears of sex, illness and death, shocked the conservative Norwegian public, but found a receptive audience in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, where the study of mental disorders was coming into vogue. This penetrating account of his life sheds light on the inner demons that drove him to create these disturbing images.
The Scream (1893) (by Edvard Munch)
The Scream
"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."
-- On the experience which inspired his famous painting, The Scream, in an entry in his Diary (22 January 1892)
A Quick Guide to "The Scream"
(1) The person in the foreground is not screaming but trying, with his hands over his ears, to avoid hearing a scream from his surrounding environment.
(2) There are two threatening unidentified strangers dressed in black further along the fence in the background.
(3) There is a black ship down on the harbor. Will it be taking someone away?
(4) The sky is a swirling red color. This is not the natural color of the sky but is an expression of how the person in the foreground is feeling (nausea or vertigo).
(5) This painting is generally regarded as a depiction of the Angst (fear) and alienation of people in modern society.
Evening on Karl Johan Street (1892) (by Edvard Munch)
Madonna (1894-95) (by Edvard Munch)
Edvard Munch items on eBay
Death in the Sickroom (1895) (by Edvard Munch)
The Dance of Life (1899-1900) (by Edvard Munch)
Living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love
"No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love."
-- Edvard Munch, "Impressions from a ballroom, New Year's Eve in St. Cloud" also known as "The St. Cloud Manifesto" (1889)
Latest News on Edvard Munch
Girls on a Bridge (1901) (by Edvard Munch)
The Sick Child (by Edvard Munch) (4th version, 1907)
Edvard Munch paintings
Which one is the best?
The Scream
Violeta says:
I like The Scream. See it in Norway before it gets stolen again!
ilovemusic says:
The Scream - a depiction of people's anxiety in the modern world.
The Sick Child
A human being's desire to open his heart
"When seen as a whole, art derives from a person's desire to communicate himself to another. I do not believe in an art which is not forced into existence by a human being's desire to open his heart. All art, literature, and music must be born in your heart's blood. Art is your heart's blood."
-- Edvard Munch, manuscript (1891), quoted in Edvard Munch and the Physiology of Symbolism (2002) by Shelley Wood Cordulack
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KimGiancaterino Feb 23, 2012 @ 2:16 am | delete
- I heard "The Scream" just sold for $80 million. Wow! I hope Edvard Munch is smiling down from heaven. Very nice lens.
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greatartists
Feb 28, 2012 @ 5:48 pm | delete
- Thanks, Kim! This auction was a rare opportunity for the general public to see that version of "The Scream" (which has long been held in a private collection) while it was awaiting auction.
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AmazonTickets
Jan 12, 2012 @ 6:24 pm | delete
- Thank you for this. It's like a little capsule of Munch's work and philosophy.
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