Art & Critique » Edvard Munch

Edvard Munch: The Scream

elijah — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 23:28:47 +0000

Much has been written and said about this masterpiece. Critics discuss themes of societal alienation, emotional extremes, such as of loneliness and despair, and so on and so forth — I won’t recapitulate these ideas, but rather will try to examine the painting on a more technical and formal level, in an endeavor to trace what exactly enables the expression of these notions. The main artistic device in this sketchy, almost primitive composition is the line: Munch fully exploits the possibilities of this basic tool, and, which is even more interesting, discovers new possibilities, by inaugurating a genre where it would play such an important role. Color plays a no less important, but subordinate role (the black and white lithograph exemplifies how the painting retains its punch even after being discolored). Finally, the painter employed his trademark method of introducing emotional immediacy by confronting the beholder with the protagonist, challenging the discontinuity of the medium by allowing him to “walk off” the canvas towards the viewer.

The Scream

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There are two kinds of lines, the wavy serpentine ones that constitute the landscape and delineate the protagonist, and the straight ones that form the bridge. I think it is possible to envisage the lines as visual metaphors of madness and sanity, respectively. The artist juxtaposes them, and thus produces immense tension, in turn channelled into the crying person as the closest and most natural receptacle (the vertex of a the compositional triangle — the sky, the beach and the bridge). Basically, the bridge represents an island island of sanity to which the screamer escaped from below, carrying in him the characteristics of that particular ambiance. It would seem that the physical transition failed to “straighten” things out, and the madness literally linearly continues on the bridge, embodied by the screaming man. The coat’s color also links him to the lower scenery. In a way, color not only reaffirms the tension but further enhances it, to the point of rendering the viewing experience uneasy. Yellows and reds battle with the blues and the greens; the skyline becomes the front line.

Scream

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There is something theatrical about the whole set-up: the beach is the pit and the bridge is the gallery; the play itself is insignificant — it’s someone from the audience who steals the show, by running from the original spectacle. The sky becomes the curtain that hangs from above and threatens to cover and consume the scene on the stage (the lake), which by now may be viewed only as a farce. By evoking the allegory of “life as a stage,” the artist offers a social commentary. But it is also a personal commentary — it is just so difficult to resist the urge to generalize. Everyone is the protagonist in their own play, and the painting addresses the individual actor more poignantly than the mass of other participants. To sum up, though the allegory of theater provides a context which may encourage to establish a positive empathizing link between the viewers and the main figure, it may interfere with the purity of expressionistic concept, breaching its innate mystery. In other words, don’t read this review…

The Scream (detail)

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Edvard Munch: The Sun

elijah — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 22:05:31 +0000

In this review I’ll try to figure out how the image of the sun may seem both very close and far, how remote and aloof yet deeply personal at the same time the painting and its impact can be. One thing is certain: the dominance of the star in (and over) this erratic landscape is overwhelming, and it will affect the viewer in one way or another, and most probably in both. This is a violent image, and there is something intimidating in it — the rays, like a spider’s web, try to catch anyone trying to study them. Though the colors of the light are mostly bright and warm, it is the short thick red and blue lines that grab all the attention, disorienting the viewer. Indeed, lines play an important part here; piercing and deep, they run through the entire canvas as if trying to break out and continue beyond it. Consequently, another notable effect becomes the sense of speed — the speed of light — that overpowers the observer and eliminates the calm instilled by the rocks and the beach.

The Sun, 1912

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If I try to break down the initial response, two visual levels emerge: the first one concentrates in the center of the painting (the reproduction in my book differs slightly from the art print above), which is mostly yellow and white, formed by the circle of the sun and the yellow radial grid, and the second one consisting of the outside landscape along with the scattered rays, which seem to contain all the colors of the rainbow. It seems that the former bright spot produces the personal effect, whereas the rest of the piece works to dissipate it, much like a ray of light does the farther it travels from the source. It is difficult but necessary to combine the two levels; perhaps not only difficult but impossible altogether, because an explosion of no less than atomic proportions takes place here, and reconstructing and bringing the pieces together may prove to be a Sisyphean toil. Thus the combination may appear unnatural, against the flow — but perhaps that is exactly what the artist wanted the viewer to realize.

The Scream

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The sun and its reflection produce the shape of a light bulb, which could be a probable allusion to the use of artificial light. This similarity further builds the argument for the natural vs. unnatural hypothesis. It’s as if the artist wished shake the viewers, cast them out of their comfort zone (the serene beach and the rocks) and confront them with a powerful all encompassing element, dangerous and unpredictable. There is something iconic, in the religious sense, about this sun, referring to ancient creeds and rituals. On a personal note, I struggled with this painting. It’s enigmatic and complex, and somewhat out of the artist’s vein. There are some abstract elements, so it can also be confusing. It resists and blocks interpretation — it just dazzles too efficiently.

Edvard Munch: Girls on the Pier

elijah — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:36:06 +0000

David Loshak, the author of my monograph, puts a lot of weight into psychoanalytical interpretation. For instance, he expounds the sun and its reflection in “The Dance of Life” as a phallic image, as well as the tree and its reflection in today’s piece. I would like to contend this trend. In my opinion, psychoanalysis is a deeply flawed, or, in other words, a fictional theory, which illustrious, and even less so art history professors inject into their essays in a way of a ready-made template for the purpose of deriving meaning from paintings. Psychoanalysis has been proven to contain massive inaccuracies but somehow still persists in the humanities — I think that the temptation of an easily accessible paradigm that only needs mechanic application is hard to resist. But eventually this is lazy and bad practice; instead of developing an original system of one’s own, scholars seek to adhere to a popular but obsolete (few “universal” truths have been corroborated as such during modern research) theory.

The Girls On The Pier, 1901

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There is enough substance in this painting to examine and interpret without resorting to Dr. Freud’s equivocal postulates. A group of three girls gazes into the lake, studying the reflections caught on the surface. The water serves as a mirror, looking into which may mean a search for knowledge and understanding — a known motif in Western art. Consequently, the tree near the shore may represent the one of knowledge. It seems ironic that eventually I arrive to a conclusion that withholds a sexual meaning, which is just as primeval as psychoanalysts claim to had uncovered, but I would still stress the difference. But the symbolism here pales near the general nostalgic mood; the long, distorted bridge and the backs of the girls imply moving away — in space as well as in time. The curve could seem like a compositional flaw resulting from lack of planning if it weren’t for the obvious effect of intensification of the said mood.

The Sun, 1912

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Nostalgia is often in the danger of slipping into sentimentalism, but Munch’s palette secures him from such excesses. There is something very noble, and probably Nordic in his restraint in choice of color. Even the bright yellows and oranges are toned down, as if diluted and inhibited by the Scandinavian character; however, these warm hues retain the zest that contributes to the general sadness by contrasting the bleak weather and surroundings. This piece transforms into a tragic event (or at least implies one), a process characteristic of some other Munch’s works as well. Perhaps this is the emotional streak that often found a more focused expression in his expressionistic paintings. Though here the artist employs more or less universal symbols, he does it in very personal — expressionistic way. In a way he alternates between two genres, never really adhering to a single school or current, a sign of an independent, original and true artist.

Edvard Munch: The Dance of Life

elijah — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 18:51:30 +0000

This is an epic scene that ensues from memory: a mental imprint transferred onto canvas. There are several features that support this thesis. First, the green grassy surface lacks detail — such smudged representations usually echo from the dreamy, simplified and reduced to a few principal details reminiscences. Second, there is the focus on the orange dress and the central couple as one of those details that deserve the maximal attention; the rest dance in the background as a visual accompaniment, or a sort of a filler. Finally, the two women on the edges manifest possible emotional developments of the central female dancer. As it often occurs in dreams and memories, the mind clones the protagonist into several alter-actors; I believe that these two girls embody the orange dressed lady’s fears and hopes, one being of death or abandonment, expressed by mourning (the black dress), the other of matrimony and happiness (the white dress).

Dance of Life, 1900

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Orange is known to be perceived as a sexually appealing color. In this case it reveals the girl’s mood of the here and now of passion, the placed in the center of the composition bright attire being an immediate temporal point of reference — if one prefers to view the other couples as the same one but in different points in time. This temporal interpretation makes sense not only because of a similar traditional Renaissance technique but also because of the strong symbolical overtones in the painting as a whole. The setup: the girl’s adult life begins from left to right, from a virginal white solitude towards encounters with men, ending with (possible) widowhood. The two closest female figures, the beginning and the end, constitute the “A” and “Z” points which need to be most visible, as the conceptual pillars of the paradigm. The other participants enclose the main couple, forming a semicircle the other half of which might be up to the viewer to complete.

The Girls On The Pier, 1901

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The female majority and other mentioned characteristics lead to the conclusion that women are the leitmotif of this piece, and probably of the artist’s thought when painting it as well. The main couple becomes the epicenter of the composition, while the whole scene rests upon a blueprint of a radial symmetry: each pair connects with the first one by imaginary threads-rays. Thus, to my mind, the monument in the background (the sun and its reflection) was raised to celebrate femininity and womanhood. It overlooks the happening and seems to inspire cautious optimism; its vivaciously wide open limbs oppose the black woman’s clasped hands, as if to signify that one weak link cannot disrupt the whole sequence, — and this is why the painting was named the “Dance of Life” rather than “of Death.” It’s as if Munch is saying that life may not always be a dance, but when it is — don’t hold back, and learn as many steps as you can.

Edvard Munch: Madonna

elijah — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 21:25:14 +0000

At some point of my critiquing career I disliked Munch because I thought the man used too many symbols at the expense of mastering basic drawing skills. But at a later stage I realized that though his drawing often indeed isn’t perfect, it is not a sufficient reason to reject the artist and deprive his artwork of the feverishly sought for benefits of my analysis… On a more serious note, I recently reviewed a Munch monograph and fell in love with his strange, cold-fiery style. I think that his paintings resemble the kind of people we often encounter in books, described as cool-headed on the outside but violently intense and turbulent on the inside. I suppose that it is the visual power of symbolism, the generic category of most of Munch’s work, that can be ascribed the capacity to communicate the tumults boiling beneath the painterly surface. Eventually, it is difficult to remain untouched at the sight of almost scorching sadness that permeates much of the artist’s output.

Madonna, c.1895

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The ghastly white covering the Madonna’s face marks her as a dying woman. “Woman” here is a term: despite the title and the halo, she appears explicitly corporeally human, though detached and probably suffering. Sainthood almost intrudes; a thematic inconsistency with the obvious physical mood, it creates tension and brings to mind the patriarchal beautification of femininity. Thus the artist offers a social commentary, as the saying “a saint — or a whore” comes to mind. Perhaps by depicting the woman in the state of passing, Munch wished to protest the stereotype, and to express his conviction that it must be abandoned and left for dead. But this is also a very private image: I think that the black hair and the nudity define the protagonist as a witch — and the hands may be performing some kind of conjuration. In some ways, the private vision coincides with the social stigma the artist denounces.

Dance of Life, 1900

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The viewing angle positions the observer above the Madonna, and it may be just as interesting to determine whether the figure recedes or advances, because the sense of movement nearly overwhelms the viewer. I find the latter option more believable: the hands in the background remind of propeller blades, which force the woman forward. But there is a compromise involved in choosing this direction, as the head notably drops back, as if unwilling to come into contact. In the context of nudity and sexuality, her mind, circled by a halo resists physical intimacy, whereas her body yearns for it. Though she moves ahead, her thoughts turn the other way. This antagonism finds a curious way out in color distribution: the residue of the rich red of the halo on the nipples and navel. Besides the implicit artistic motive for this red pattern (a visual link between the upper and lower parts of the piece), there is also the symbolic one: sainthood becomes associated with reproduction and the nurture of future generations — a humanistic understanding of spirituality.

Art & Critique » Edvard Munch

Edvard Munch: The Scream

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Edvard Munch: The Sun

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Edvard Munch: Girls on the Pier

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Edvard Munch: The Dance of Life

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Edvard Munch: Madonna

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