Just to clarify from the beginning, his last name is not pronounced “munch” as in to munch on something, it is pronounced “Moonk” with the vowel quickly prounounced, not like “moo” as in a cow moos.  I have heard so many people pronounce it wrong and it just sounds bad, doesn’t it? 

Edvard Munch is one of Norway’s prized artists.  One of his most well known paintings is “Scream,” which you would probably recognize if you take interest in art.  Munch was a symbolist painter, printmaker, lithographer, wood engraver, and one of the forerunners of expressionist art.   Munch’s style of art was a result of the tumultuous times in which he lived (1863-1944) and his own troubled life. 

Edvard had 4 siblings:  one older sister, Johanna Sophie, and 3 younger siblings, Peter Andreas, Inger Marie, and Laura Cathrine.  His mother, also Laura Cathrine, died when Edvard was only 5 years old and his older and favorite sister, Johanna Sophie died when Edvard was 14 years old.  His father, Christian (son of a priest) took care of the children after their mother died.  Edvard saw his father as an extremely nervous and religious man, 2 characteristics to which Edvard attributed his own internal demons.  As a young child, Edvard was in poor physical health, and even then he knew that he suffered from deep sadness and depression.  One of his younger sisters was diagnosed with mental illness at a young age, so it clearly ran in the family. 

At the age of 16, Edvard enrolled in a technical college to study engineering.  While he proved to be quite talented, he left engineering behind and enrolled in the Royal School of Art and Design of Kristiania.  A distant relative, Jacob Munch, was actually one of the founders of the school.  In his early years as a painter, Munch experimented quite a bit with Naturalism and Impressionism.  After a while these forms of art did not allow for enough expression for Munch, so he entered a period of self-reflection, supported especially by the views of Hans Jaeger, a local nihilist, who advocated suicide as a form of freedom of self. 

During his young adult life as an artist, Munch began to binge-drink and get into fights.  His first adventure as an artist took him to Paris where he studied for a brief stint and then returned home to Oslo after his father died.  As you can see, death was prevalent in his life.  Munch’s painting “Scream” is understood by many to represent the universal anxiety of modern humankind.   

Many years later as an adult man, Munch was still drinking heavily and getting into fights.  He began therapy and naturally, his art became more colorful and less depressing.  However, not a decade later brought the arrival of the WWI, which Munch had a hard time with, because most of his friends were German, but it was France that he really loved.  After WWI, many of his Jewish friends had suffered great losses under the Germans during the rise of Nazism.  In addition, Munch suffered, but survived the great Spanish flu pandemic.

Most of Munch’s last years were spent at his estate in Ekely, at Skøyen, Oslo, where his art reflected farm life.  He spent much of his time painting self-portraits of the different stages of his life, which in the 30s and 40s the Nazis deemed unfavorable art.  As a result of Nazi opinions of Munch’s style, much of his work was removed from German museums.  Shortly after his 80th birthday, Munch died in his home, after several years of paranoia about the German occupation of Norway.  The Nazis orchestrated his funeral, and therefore many believed that Munch was a Nazi-sympathizer. 

The city of Oslo bought his estate, with all of his art and built a museum for Munch’s work (the Munch Museum) in Tøyen, Oslo, which opened in 1963.  If I had a choice of going to a history museum, a science museum, or an art museum, the art museum would always be my 3rd choice, but I had a great experience at the Munch Museum.  It’s quite astounding to be in a museum in a small country that is so full and dedicated to one artist-a truly amazing man who produced so much meaningful art.  Check it out!

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