😉 Welcome new and regular readers! In the article “Edvard Munch: A Brief Biography and Paintings of the Artist” – briefly about the life of a Norwegian painter and graphic artist, art theorist. Munch is one of the first exponents of Expressionism. Years of life 1863-1944.
Edvard Munch: biography
Edvard Munch is the brightest representative of Expressionism, a new trend in painting of the XNUMXth century. His works, deeply emotional, saturated with despair and suffering, once seen, it is impossible to forget them.
The artist perceived life as a series of favorite things leaving a person. It is like a river that carries away all the most precious, but is not replenished with new waters. Ultimately, it dries up, ends. And the horror of this relentlessness and transience, unusually subtly conveyed in his works Munch.
Edward was born in the Norwegian province of Hedmark on December 12, 1863. When he was five years old, his mother died of tuberculosis. In 1877, Sophie’s sister, who was fifteen years old, died of the same disease.
Sixteen-year-old Edward enters Oslo Technical High School. Soon he transferred to the State Academy of Arts and Crafts. Munch suffered from a mental disorder, this was reflected in his drawing style.
In 1885 he traveled to Paris, where he attended an exhibition of the Impressionists. The artist’s first personal exhibition took place in 1889. Then he went to Europe thanks to a scholarship, and lived in Paris and Berlin. He began to write at the age of 20. But his paintings were recognized only in the last years of his life.
Edward has had several unsuccessful romances. In his personal life, the artist was lonely. At the age of 60, Munch suffered a hemorrhage in his right eye. This negatively affected his work. Edvard Munch died in 1944, a month after his XNUMXth birthday.
Paintings by Edvard Munch
“Sick Girl”
One of the paintings of the period of his formation is “The Sick Girl”, written in 1885. However, the artist until the end of his life considered her to be one of the main in his work. The canvas depicts a red-haired girl half-sitting in her bed, leaning on a large white pillow.
The girl’s face is turned to a woman who is crying, her head resting on the same pillow. The girl looks at the woman with kindness and seems to console her. They hold hands and clearly have a conversation, which is interrupted by the sobbing of a grief-stricken relative.
The whole picture is in gloomy, greenish tones, the only bright spot here, the figure of a dying person. This picture, like all subsequent ones in the artist’s work, is deeply autobiographical. He himself admitted that his sister, Sophie Munch, served as the prototype for the main character. She died of tuberculosis at the age of 15.
Their mother had died of the same disease nine years earlier. The artist’s father was a deeply religious person, his son said that he gave him “the seeds of madness”.
Grief for the women he loved further aggravated this man’s religiosity. He turned Edward’s life into a series of dark, grief-filled days. The motives for the death of a loved one, grief and loss of something very dear, are easy to read in the picture.
This work was not recognized at the time of the first appearance in the world. Now she is undoubtedly one of the most recognizable in the artist’s gallery.
“Scream”
The most famous painting by Edvard Munch is The Scream. Everyone knows this picture, even those who are not fond of studying the arts. On the canvas we see a man whose face is distorted in a silent cry of despair and horror. He stands on the bridge. Behind him is a scarlet sky and a dark blue river, merging into one on the horizon.
The background seems to be spinning in a whirlwind, goes to Tartarus and carries away the depicted character. He is powerless in front of this current and all that remains for him is to scream, clutching his head. Initially, the painter called the painting “The Cry of Nature”.
The idea of the painting came to him while he and his comrades were walking along the bridge. In one of his diaries, he described how the sky suddenly turned blood red. And he stopped, overwhelmed by the impossibility of resisting the immense force. The power that takes time, love and all that exists away from him.
Some critics attributed the picture to prophetic motives related to the troubles that will crush on the shoulders of Munch. This one of the most emotional paintings in history has become the emblem of Expressionism.
Subsequently, this image from there, was used more than once even in popular culture. For example, the same scream is read in the famous maniac mask in the horror movie Scream.
“Parting”
Painted in the 1890s, Parting literally illustrates how Edvard Munch perceived life. The artist saw love as inseparable from suffering and death. Therefore, on this canvas of his, the main character suffers inconsolably, remembering his beloved.
He is shown in the foreground. The outline of his rosary, his eyes are closed. The hand, outlined in bold, in red, is attached to the place where the human heart is. However, it is obvious that little is left of the hero’s heart. The man is depicted as gloomy and suffering.
Perhaps this is how the artist suffered in reality and that is why the picture is so desperately sad. There is a light spot in the background. This is the silhouette of a girl who moves away, taking with her the entire visible joyful world. The man remembers her and with pain feels how she is irretrievably lost to him.
Sad image of a girl in white. The girl happily and arrogantly leaves, embodies how the master saw love and life in general.
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