Edvard Munch: Emotion as Art

Edvard Munch: Emotion as Art

Since the 7th grade, I have been a huge fan of the famous French-inspired realist and expressionist, Edvard Munch. His work is so full of passion and pain as well as shock and sadness. By gazing into the gloriously deep world of emotion he created, art lovers both young and old are amazed and drawn in.

Born on December 12, 1863 in Loton, Norway, Munch entered a family of five children. He grew up with his father serving in the Army as a doctor and his mother took care of the large family. In 1868, Munch’s mother died of tuberculosis, the first of many tragedies in his life. His aunt, Karen Bjolstad, assumed the role of caregiver in the absence of his mother. Another tragedy occurred in 1877 when his fifteen year old sister, Sophie, died of tuberculosis as well.

Munch’s first official art training began at the Technical College in 1879. The following year he entered a design school where he became very interested in freehand and modeling classes. In 1882, Munch and six other artists rented a studio which was headed by Christian Krohg, Norway’s leading artist at the time.

In 1885, Munch won a scholarship to study in Paris. While in France, he began working on his realistic approach, and completed, “The Sick Child,” which was a piece reflecting on the devastating death of his sister, Sophie. He continued on with this expressionism based on painful personal experiences, and received a great amount of negative criticism.

Yet another catastrophe occurred in 1886 when Munch’s father passed away. Munch continued diligently with his work as he studied in France, and eventually developed the French Impressionist Technique. While in Paris, he used this technique to create art that symbolized his...

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...unch,” was published in 1917. This book included artwork that Munch had presented on many of his travels around the world. It included work from the “National Galerie” in Berlin which included 223 oil paintings.

Edvard Munch died on January 23, 1944 in Ekley, Norway. All of his works were left to the city of Oslo, who eventually built a museum to display the 1,008 paintings, 15,391 prints, 4,443 drawings and watercolors, and six sculptures. The museum was named, “The Munch-museet”, in Edvard Munch’s honor.

Munch’s work is still popular today and continues to be in the media. In July of 2004, a few of Munch’s famous pieces, including, “The Scream,” were stolen from his museum in Oslo. This shows the continued popularity of Munch’s very personal powerful works.

Works Cited:

http://www.mnc.net/norway/Edvmunch.htm

http://www.edvardmunch.info/biography.asp