Edvard Munch

Many people look at the works of Edvard Munch and think " What compels a man to paint such figures?", "What lies in this man's mind that makes his pieces so deranged. From the indistinguishable figures shown in many of his pieces , to the disturbing sceneries, his paintings are truly mysterious. The only way to really understand his work is to understand him and his very emotional life.

The life of Edvard would be one I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy. He was born in Norway to father Christian and mother Catharine Munch. He also had an older sister by the name of Sophie. You could say that his family was plagued by tuberculosis. This disease took both his mother and sister from the mortal plane. His mother had died in 1868, while Sophie died in 1877. A truly tragic occurrence no person should have to experience.

As a painter, Edvard was post-impressionistic. His art is very ambiguous. From his piece "The Scream" which I wall talk about later, to his own version of David's classic work "The Death of Marat" his works stood out among those from the normalcy of the romantic and classical periods. As stated earlier, Edvard's works are truly emotional. Each one of his works focuses on a different emotion, whether it is love, hate, or in many of his pieces, anxiety.

In most of his works, Munch keeps some things recurrent. One thing that is seen in many of his pieces are the undistinguishable facial features on many of the people in his paintings. This creates a sense of distortion and ambiguity. In three specific pieces, "The Scream", "Anxiety", and "Despair" he keeps three things recurrent. These include the overall mood of the painting, the setting, and as said earlier, the undistinguishable features of the characters on the painting.

In "Anxiety" (seen right) the first thing you notice are haunting faces on the people walking across the Oslo bridge. Not much can be told from their expressions, which in hence gives the piece a disturbing and surreal feeling. I believe that from the perspective the people are shown, its as if they are heading forward, not aware of what's going to happen next.

In "Despair" we once again see the haunting setting from "Anxiety". This time there is only a lone person standing on the Oslo bridge as a group of people can be seen in the distance walking away. This piece

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