DISCOVERING THE ARTIST EDVARD MUNCH
Edvard Munch was born in Norway in 1863, and was raised in Christiania (known as Oslo today). He was related to famous painters and artists in their own right, Jacob Munch (painter), and Peter Munch (historian). Only a few years after he was born, Edvard Munch's mother died of tuberculosis in 1868, and he was raised by his father. Edvard's father suffered of mental illness, and this played a role in the way he and his siblings were raised. Their father raised them with the fears of deep seated issues, which is part of the reason why the work of Edvard Munch took a deeper tone, and why the artist was known to have so many repressed emotions as he grew up.
Most of art’s iconic masterpieces are renowned for their beauty. Think Leonardo’s smiling Mona Lisa, Vermeer’s luminous Girl with a Pearl Earring and Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night.
But there’s one glaring exception in the list of all-time greats: Edvard Munch's The Scream. With its pale, hairless figure holding its head in its hands, mouth agape in a tortured howl, it was perhaps an unlikely candidate to become one of the most recognisable and reproduced images of all time.
The Scream, 1893, Edvard Munch (1863-1944). Oil, tempera and pastel on cardboard | Image: National Gallery of Norway
Yet this visceral, doom-laden work – a reflection of the Norwegian artist’s troubled state of mind at the end of the 19th Century – has grown to permeate every aspect of popular culture, from film and TV to memes and tattoos.
You’ll find adaptations and parodies of it on student bedroom walls, on protesters’ placards and in political cartoons. It’s the first painting to have spawned its own emoji – the ‘face screaming in fear’. It has become the ultimate image of existential crisis, the original Nordic Noir.
“One evening I was walking along a path; the city was on one side and the fjord below,” Munch wrote, describing his inspiration for the painting.
“I felt tired and ill. I stopped and looked out over the fjord — the sun was setting, and the clouds turning blood red.
“I sensed a scream passing through nature; it seemed to me that I heard the scream. I painted this picture, painted the clouds as actual blood. The colour shrieked. This became The Scream.”
Hollywood has capitalized over the iconic image. of the The Scream in movies, commercials and tv shows for decades as shown below.
Many of Edvard Munchs’ paintings were created on a massive scale as shown below. He often painted out of doors in a court yard with an awning. He would leave his paintings outside in bad weather. He felt this gave the canvases and paintings a seasoned appeal as if tried by the elements of nature. Below you will view one of a series of paintings called simply Sun. As you scroll down you will see the actual size of the painting itself.
Spend time studying the two painting’s below. What is the emotion that you feel? What is going on in this painting? Why is the painting composed as it is? What is the artist trying to convey? Can you list the emotion Edvard Munch is trying to convey? Below the paintings there is an area for you to write one to three paragraphs answering the above questions. You may write a short story around the painting as if you were telling a narrative or you may simply answer the questions above. Simply be sure to submit your writing.
You have two assignments that are due in one week. Your first assignment is to complete the assessment form below. The second assignment is to drag the Meet the Master Sheet to the desktop, print it out, and add your own expressive color to Munchs’ The Scream.
Assignment #2:
Drag the Meet the Master Sheet to your desktop, print it and add your own expressive colors to the image. When you are finished, make a photo of your competed work and send the photo to ihs.db@yahoo.com
