Edvard Munch: At the Munch Museum
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,Individual Artists
Edvard Munch: At the Munch Museum Details
A comprehensive and enlightening overview of this extraordinary painter researched by the foremost experts in the fieldOver 150 colour illustrations of his most important worksFeatures the lithographs and woodcuts as well as the paintingsEdvard Munch is Norway's most important painter and graphic artist and the only one to exercise a decisive influence on European art. A forerunner of Expressionism, his works were influenced by an early life tortured by sickness, insanity, rejection and guilt and he worked through his neuroses in his paintings. With the greatest consistency throughout his life, Munch created a life's work which would not only enable the deepest problems of the century to live on into our time, but also says something about human existence, which couldn't be put into words. Right up to the last days of his life, Munch shed light on anxiety as an existential problem.This beautifully produced survey of the painter from the Curators at the Munch Museum in Oslo is a rich exploration of his life, his paintings and his graphic works. Both famous and lesser-known paintings are analysed and put into context as well as the extraordinary woodcuts, which so cleverly exploit the grain of the wood and are some of the most accomplished and confident things he did.
Reviews
I was first introduced to Edvard Munch when I visited the National Gallery and the Munch Museum in Oslo last year. I was intrigued by his wide range of styles and subject matter, as well as his striking use of comic-grotesque images.This book focuses primarily on the larger art collection at the Munch Museum. It also includes three lengthy essays that address his personal life, a detailed survey of his paintings, and a briefer overview of his graphic art (intaglio, lithography, and woodcut).Like many artists, Munch was deeply influenced by childhood tragedy, particularly the deaths of his mother and sister. He battled depression, he overcame gambling and drinking problems, and he had at least one spectacularly disastrous romance that ended with one of his fingers being shot off.The book helped me understand the context of the art community during Munch’s lifetime, and also gave me an appreciation for the many techniques he pioneered.
