Norwegian painter, printmaker, and draftsman Edvard Munch drew from his own life to make work examining what he called, “the modern life of the soul,” encompassing such universal human experiences as birth, innocence, love, sexual passion, melancholy, anger, jealousy, despair, anxiety, illness, and death. In Melancholy III (Melankoli III), the entire seaside landscape becomes an expression of Munch’s mood, and the pensive foreground figure seems embedded into his surroundings.
Munch believed that conveying emotion was more important than making naturalistic images of the world. As he wrote, “Nature is not something that can be seen by the eye alone—it lies also within the soul, in pictures seen by the inner eye.” Ultimately, painting became a kind of religious endeavor for him, a means through which he hoped to “understand the meaning of life [and] help others gain an understanding of their lives.”
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Galerie Beyeler, Basel; [sold to Hauswedell, Hamburg, 1966]; sold through Kornfeld & Klipstein, Bern, auction #121 (lot #759) to Heinz Berggruen/Contemporary Art Establishment, Zurich, June 11, 1966; sold to The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1968.
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Edvard Munch
Norwegian, 1863–1944 73 works onlineFor Edvard Munch, 1893 was a year of screams. In the fall, the Norwegian artist produced two versions of The Scream , his now iconic image of personal and universal anguish. ” he later wrote.
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Expressionism
Encompasses varying stylistic approaches that emphasize intense personal expression. Renouncing the stiff bourgeois social values that prevailed at the turn of the 20th century, and rejecting the traditions of the state-sponsored art academies, Expressionist artists turned to boldly simplified or distorted forms and exaggerated, sometimes clashing colors.
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