Edvard Munch is a nightmare maker and anxiety singer

Edvard Munch (born December 12, 1863 died January 23, 1944) is a world famous Norwegian painter, expressionist and symbolist, the author of the “picturesque horror”, the creator of the famous painting “The Scream”. His work is imbued with motives of anxiety, horror, death, jealousy, despair, but at the same time in many of his works the anthem of life sounds, there is hope and attempts to break out of the psychological abyss. Munch went down in art history as a brilliant painter and emotional graphic artist, the father of Expressionism and one of the forerunners of surrealism.

Edvard Munch created over a thousand paintings, repeating many themes in several variations (for example, “The Scream” is written in four versions). Most of the themes are tragic, their embodiment is painful and emotional. It is no coincidence that Munch is called “the gloomy Norwegian genius.” But everything was not so simple.

Edvard Munch was a complex and multifaceted person. Despite the tragedies, psychological crises and attempted suicide, he still was not a man firmly immersed in the abyss of depression. This man loved life, and his work, apparently, was partly personal psychotherapy, helping to cope with mental breakdowns. And also a philosophical study of the essence of people, the study of the depths of the human psyche and the search for ways to the sun from the abyss. Therefore, there are also things (mainly landscapes) in which the expressionist praises life. These are, for example, such works as “Under the Apple Tree”, “The Sun”, “Dance of Life”. However, even in these works, notes of anxiety are woven into the emotional melody.

Biography

Edvard Munch was born on December 12, 1863 in the small town of Löthen in Norway. His father was a military doctor a poor man, but he came from a family known in the cultural circles of Norwegian society. Thus, Edward’s grandfather was a preacher, his uncle was a historian, and one of his relatives was the painter Jacob Munch, who studied with the famous French neoclassicist Jacques-Louis David. The family was poor and often moved from one inexpensive housing to another, sometimes even cheaper. The apartments that had to be rented were damp, there was not enough light and air. Because of this, Edward’s mother and older sister fell ill with tuberculosis.

The boy lost his mother early at the age of five. His older sister Sophie took up his upbringing. Edward was deeply attached to her and suffered a great emotional breakdown when consumption took his sister too. He was fifteen at the time. The sermons of the religious father also had a significant impact on the teenager’s psyche. They made the child suffer from nightmares with visions of hell.

The experiences of childhood and adolescence had a strong psychological impact on Munch and were subsequently reflected in the artist’s work.

The health of Edvard Munch himself was also fragile, which interfered with his studies.

Nevertheless, at the age of sixteen, the young man entered a technical college. He showed impressive success in the exact and natural sciences, but after a year he dropped out to pursue his dream of becoming a painter. This decision angered his father, but other relatives supported the young man, since he had a clear artistic gift. In addition, the family already had an example of a successful career in this field. In 1881, the young man began to study at the Royal School of Drawing. Two years later, he presented to the public his first works, which were written in the traditional realistic manner.

On the scholarship he received, the aspiring painter went to Paris, where he got acquainted with the latest trends in art. He begins to experiment, the style of the young artist becomes bolder. As a result, The Sick Girl (1886), written in memory of her deceased sister, became innovative and drew a flurry of criticism. In this work, the strongest emotionality is already noticeable, which will become key in the work of Edvard Munch. The picture is permeated with a feeling of pain, hopelessness and desire to live. Only later did viewers appreciate this tragic image of dying youth.

In 1898, the artist went to France again. The impressionists and pointillists had the greatest influence on him. In the 1890s, the expressionist artist’s style was finally formed. After being praised by the influential conservative painter Eilert Adelsteen Normann in 1892, quite unexpectedly, criticism became more favorable to the young author. Gradually, he is gaining recognition.

In 1892-1893, the master began to work on his famous cycle “Frieze”, in which he creates works on eternal themes, reflecting on love and death. It was within the framework of this series that the author’s main masterpiece, The Scream (1893), was written.

The beginning of the 20th century passed for Edvard Munch under the sign of a strong mental breakdown due to a tragic romance with Matilda Larsen, who was called Tulla in a friendly circle. The artist even tried to shoot himself, but, fortunately, unsuccessfully. In 1908, he spent six months in a psychiatric hospital. Perhaps heredity also played a role, since the second sister of the master was sick with schizophrenia.

However, Munch’s later portraits are less dramatic.

Perhaps at this time, the artist, who twice found himself on the brink of life and death (first because of a suicide attempt, then falling ill with a “Spanish flu”) began to love life more sharply. But the echoes of anxious moods sound in his later works.

Edvard Munch left the world on January 23, 1944, at the age of 80. His last years were turbulent: the fascist regime, established during the Second World War in Norway, first called the work of the expressionist artist “Aryan”, but after a while “degenerate.”

Munch seriously feared reprisals and confiscation of paintings, but this did not happen: fate preserved the legacy of the genius for posterity. The painter bequeathed his works to the city.