As I was sorting through our household collection of Great Artists, cataloguing them according to the period/genre, I treated myself by putting aside some to enjoy later. Favorites such as Monet and Seurat and Lowry, but also some that I was unfamiliar with, like Whistler, Hopper, and Burra. And then, there is Edvard Munch.
Been reading a lot about Munch lately, as he turns 150 next year, and also because of the buzz over the Sotheby sale of one of his Scream series a couple of months ago. Sharing here some insights from an article by Maya Jaggi, that I found interesting. One of the interesting bits was that Munch left his work to the city of Oslo, perhaps to prevent the Nazi government from grabbing it.
Munch also painted an astonishing fjord sunrise, reflecting his belief that people should remove their hats before art “as they do in church.” The series was for a competition in 1911, but controversy delayed its hanging for five years. In 1917 Richard Strauss stood entranced by The Sun before raising his baton, and Einstein lectured in its rays.
An unexpectedly joyous frieze was made for the women’s canteen of the Freia chocolate factory, just east of Grunerlokka, in 1923. The 12 bucolic scenes were reinstalled by Munch in 1934 in a wing overlooking a walled garden. This model canteen (now owned by Kraft) can be viewed by appointment. Employees in white hairnets still eat lunch under the frieze.
Read more: Edvard Munch's Oslo
Been reading a lot about Munch lately, as he turns 150 next year, and also because of the buzz over the Sotheby sale of one of his Scream series a couple of months ago. Sharing here some insights from an article by Maya Jaggi, that I found interesting. One of the interesting bits was that Munch left his work to the city of Oslo, perhaps to prevent the Nazi government from grabbing it.
< The Dance of Life
On the forested slopes above the Norwegian capital is a railed path whose sunset view inspired Edvard Munch’s famous vision. The “sky became blood,” he later wrote, and “I heard a huge extraordinary scream pass through nature.” The nearby Ekeberg restaurant has a similar view over the Oslofjord. The setting recurs in other paintings. Munch was barely 30 when he first painted The Scream in 1893. He worked from memory, even in front of a landscape, imbuing it with past perceptions and emotions, painting, he wrote, “not what I see but what I saw.” An anatomist of his psyche, he wrung lifelong motifs from personal experience. But his professed aim was to “dissect what is universal in the soul.”
On the forested slopes above the Norwegian capital is a railed path whose sunset view inspired Edvard Munch’s famous vision. The “sky became blood,” he later wrote, and “I heard a huge extraordinary scream pass through nature.” The nearby Ekeberg restaurant has a similar view over the Oslofjord. The setting recurs in other paintings. Munch was barely 30 when he first painted The Scream in 1893. He worked from memory, even in front of a landscape, imbuing it with past perceptions and emotions, painting, he wrote, “not what I see but what I saw.” An anatomist of his psyche, he wrung lifelong motifs from personal experience. But his professed aim was to “dissect what is universal in the soul.”
Munch also painted an astonishing fjord sunrise, reflecting his belief that people should remove their hats before art “as they do in church.” The series was for a competition in 1911, but controversy delayed its hanging for five years. In 1917 Richard Strauss stood entranced by The Sun before raising his baton, and Einstein lectured in its rays.
An unexpectedly joyous frieze was made for the women’s canteen of the Freia chocolate factory, just east of Grunerlokka, in 1923. The 12 bucolic scenes were reinstalled by Munch in 1934 in a wing overlooking a walled garden. This model canteen (now owned by Kraft) can be viewed by appointment. Employees in white hairnets still eat lunch under the frieze.
Read more: Edvard Munch's Oslo
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