Works by Edvard Munch. School encyclopedia

The artist, whose work in the West is put on a par with Gauguin and Cezanne, is not very well known in Russia. The genius considered the creator new era and who painted gloomy pictures about death, suffered from nervous breakdowns, for which he was treated.

In his youth, he said that the day would come when everyone would take off their hats in front of his canvases, as if in church, but he was still very far from public recognition. “Without my paintings I am nothing,” Edvard Munch once admitted, whose works are now much more famous than the author himself.

To understand the artist’s original creativity, it is necessary to find out how and with what he lived, creating masterpieces “written with the blood of his heart.”

Loss of loved ones

Born in 1863 in Norway future artist, whose creativity will be called absolutely new painting, which blew up established traditions in art. who is filled with tragic events that left their mark on his works, has firmly entered history as a creator whose works caused a strong emotional impact on the viewer.

Edward recalled his childhood as bleak and filled with loss. Having lost his mother and beloved sister, who died of tuberculosis, the boy tragically perceived his life path. His recollection of that time is known: “The black angels of madness, illness, death flocked to my cradle and accompanied me all my life.”

Image of the inner world

After school, Munch studies to become an engineer, but at some point he realizes that he only dreams of painting. Even known exact date- November 8, 1888, it was then in personal diary A teenager suffering from fear of life wrote that he had decided to become an artist.

“I often woke up in a cold sweat and looked around my room to see if I was in hell,” Edvard Munch confessed at the end of his life. The young painter’s paintings conveyed his experiences: he did not like “beautiful” images, focusing on what is not visible behind the outer shell of a person.

Depicting people, he made casts of them inner world: “There will never be another artist who has squeezed out his theme to the last drop like I have.”

Dark motives in creativity

The series of tragic departures continued - Munch lost his father, younger brother, my sister died in a mental health clinic. This is reflected in the artist’s work - the dark motifs of loneliness and death gain even greater strength. Critics noted that the author had an amazing ability to visually display his moods and emotions.

After the losses, Munch considered God to be the main culprit of all tragedies. He renounces religion, seeking for himself new system values. Considering the whole world empty, the artist declares meaninglessness human life and assures that only through art can immortality be achieved.

Studying in art school, Edvard Munch, whose paintings are difficult to attribute to one direction, selflessly devotes himself to art. He did not want his works to simply decorate the walls of houses or museums. “My paintings are what I myself experienced, my diary. They gave meaning to my life,” the painter shared his most intimate.

Closing of exhibitions

The world-traveling genius met in different directions and styles in art. He exhibited his works in galleries, but they caused too much public outcry, and his exhibitions were closed. Masters classical school counted in painting strange pictures offensive to watch, and Munch himself was called an anarchist. After the announcement of the closure of the exhibition, the “ugly” works become famous, and progressive youth begin to admire the scandalous paintings.

Unsettled personal life

Accustomed to loneliness, the young man fled from relationships with women, assigning them a fatal role in the fate of all men. Representatives of the fair sex fell in love with a strange young man with sparkling eyes, passionate about art, but Munch believed that strong feelings will weaken his desire to create.

There is a well-known passionate affair between the artist and the daughter of a noble merchant, which ended tragically for both: the obsessive girl, who became a burden for the young man, tried to poison herself after learning from Edward about the separation, and after she was literally returned from the other world, she shot the painter in the hand.

and treatment of illness

Having undergone several operations and having lost a finger, Munch was worried about his creative future. After this incident, the unsociable artist began to feel real. His nerves began to fail more and more often, and the artist lost his temper with random people. He could even beat those who, in his opinion, spoke unflatteringly about him. Frequent attacks, accompanied by aggressive actions, lead Munch to a psychiatric hospital, where he was treated with electric shock.

The artist understood that he could not cope with alcoholism and depression alone, and went to seek help from specialists. It must be said that the disease did not leave him even after long-term treatment. But Edward accepted it, believing that his work was inextricably linked with mental breakdowns.

Unexpected popularity

After intensive therapy, Munch is released. “It’s not that easy to get out of there. You can't answer all the questions however you want. You need to guess what the doctors expect from you, otherwise you will stay there forever,” Edvard Munch shared his memories. Works genius artist During the time he spent in the clinic, they became popular.

The master, who became famous overnight, is bombarded with offers from galleries around the world and private collectors. But the “gloomy Norwegian,” as his contemporaries sometimes called him, was in no hurry to part with his creations. He could not create without seeing his canvases.

Portraits as a transmission of the human soul

The artist Edvard Munch drew all his ideas from within himself, trying to help other people with his creativity understand the complexities of life and explain its purpose. After 1900, he created collections of portraits, which became the main genre in his work. These were memorable works that explored fine strings human soul. The artist did not paint commissioned portraits of those whom he did not know well, and conveying only external resemblance did not satisfy him.

Creativity in the last years of life

And here late period Many critics consider the master's work to be the most unsuccessful. Edvard Munch, whose works were filled with deep philosophical ideas, but are recognized as weak in artistically, worked hard in his workshop. His style changed for the worse, and his paintings, painted with rough strokes, disappointed his fans. It is known that the author suffered from an eye disease, due to which he subsequently stopped working completely.

Munch died in early 1944, near Oslo, during the German occupation. He did not leave any students after his death, because his original creativity was too personal and subjective.

“Sick Girl”: farewell to my beloved sister

“Everything I have done in my work owes its birth to this painting,” Munch once admitted. “The Sick Girl” is his earliest work, which made the artist famous. Deep wounds after the death of loved ones in childhood left an indelible mark on the soul of an impressionable boy. He depicted his sister dying of tuberculosis, and the motifs of illness and death often ran through his work.

For forty years, Munch was haunted by the unexpected death of his beloved sister, and he created five versions of this painting, which was subjected to severe criticism from the public. The work depicting a girl on her deathbed, recognized as a significant and turning point in the artist’s work, caused a scandalous reaction from the public for such a harsh style of painting and expression of the most forbidden feelings - suffering, pain and despair of a person.

Harassment of critics and misunderstanding of the public

The reclusive Edvard Munch constantly listened to accusations of depression and formlessness of the work presented to the audience. Paintings with titles emphasizing the deep tragedy and constant pain of the author were not accepted by the public, who were not ready to love paintings that were far from realistic art. Critics made insulting attacks on the artist and called his creations outright failures.

The talented painter was forced to fight for freedom in his creativity, daily facing outright contempt and ridicule of his hard-earned creation, which conveys the state of a person, and not his appearance. Munch deliberately created drawings that did not conform to the standard canons of art, which literally stunned his contemporaries with the truth of life.

Mysterious painting "Scream"

Most recognizable work genius master- the painting “The Scream” conveys the real horror of a person. Munch, the sufferer, portrayed the main character feeling something hostile. Moreover, incredible fear gripped only him, and two figures behind him were talking peacefully, not hearing the terrible scream.

Researchers of the work of the Norwegian painter are inclined to believe that this painting was written under the influence of the developed mental illness Munch. The sexless creature, which opened its mouth and clasped its head in its hands so as not to hear the terrible screams, may have been inspired by the image of a mummy that a Norwegian saw at an exhibition.

Munch's exposed nerve

What does the strange and dark work of "The Scream" represent? Munch believed that man in a battle with nature is doomed to defeat. The depicted creature is deprived of a protective shell, and every impact of external forces causes it to experience incredible torment. Main character- this is the creator himself, and his naked nerve reacts to every touch. Munch defends himself from a natural scream, and the figure of the depicted hero is a natural reaction of a frightened person fleeing from real or apparent cataclysms.

Notoriety

Initially, the drawing was called “Nature’s Scream”. It was precisely this that the author felt, trembling with excitement, in 1892 in Nice. It's probably not surprising that with such a gloomy picture connected mystical curse everyone who comes into any contact with him. Workers who carried the painting committed suicide due to severe headaches and had terrible accidents. A curious visitor who touched the canvas with his finger burned alive in his house.

The painting, worth more than $70 million, has been stolen several times, but has always been returned to the Munch Museum in Oslo. The eerie atmosphere recreated on canvas affects the viewer’s psyche, and this fact has been scientifically confirmed.

Nobody knows whether this is a tragic accident taking the souls of people, or whether it really mystical picture has evil fate. Be that as it may, museum visitors try to avoid it.

"Comfort". Graphics in black and white

An unusual black and white image of two sitting naked people against the background of wallpaper was created in 1894 by the little-known Munch. “Consolation” - that’s what he called his graphic work, which realistically conveys the despair and grief of a woman covering her tear-stained face with her hands. A man gently hugs her shoulder, but his calming gesture cannot soften the unexpected blow of fate that destroyed the serene life of his companion.

Munch's graphics are a separate world in which the author moved away from detailed images to generalization. "Consolation" was one of the first graphic works famous Norwegian.

Provocative painting “Madonna”

Munch, who suffered all his life, whose “Madonna” bears little resemblance to the usual one classic look, embodied his secret experiences on canvas. He considered a woman a mystery to all men: “Saint and vicious, drug and suffering. A man who drives you crazy."

A tragically broken relationship with the daughter of a wine merchant left a mark on the soul of a man who believed that female beauty brings pain and danger. The painter’s “Madonna” is devoid of any holiness and purity. The woman, in ecstasy, closed her eyes from fatigue and immersed herself in her sensations. Her blue hair is loose and seems to conceal a terrible danger. The gloomy background of the canvas is disturbing and suggests some kind of threat to humanity as a whole.

Munch, creating a work in which love is closely connected with the end of life on earth, wanted to convey all the stages that a woman goes through - from conception and birth of a child to death. And the audience considered the picture quite vulgar, in which only the halo gives a resemblance to the canonical image of the Madonna.

“Breakup”: the pain of breaking up a relationship

In this work, Edvard Munch used three styles of painting. "Separation" was written after a bad experience. love relationship an artist dividing the image of a painting into past and present. He considers the internal and external world a suffering man, depicted with a gloomy face and holding his heart with a bloody hand. On the right, Munch painted a faceless girl in a light dress. The author emphasizes that the hero experiencing a breakup is trying to forget the one who caused him so much suffering, and her face is forever erased from his memory.

Directly in front of the man is what appears to be a strange plant or creature with two heads. The red substance, which at first looks solid, inexorably breaks into different sides. The work uses surrealism, symbolism and modernism, conveying the tragedy of parting.

Immortality in canvases

Lonely and difficult to get along with people, Edvard Munch, whose works testify to his undoubted talent, during his lifetime caused a lot of talk about his work, which was reflected in the controversial personality of the author. Not wanting to part with his pained canvases and dreaming of merging with them, Munch continues to live in his paintings, which made him immortal.

Edvard Munch (Norwegian) Edward Munch; December 12, 1863, Löten, Hedmark - January 23, 1944, Ekelu, near Oslo) is a Norwegian artist with an alarming, northern, doomed, prophetic worldview, which formed the basis of his painting style - expressionism.

Features of the work of the artist Edvard Munch: For most of his life, Munch worked on a large cycle “about love, life and death,” which he called “Frieze of Life.” It includes all the most famous and iconic works of the artist. Tragic, nervous, doomed, full of justified and inexplicable forebodings, his paintings are built on a harsh contrast of color, sharpness of forms, and inevitable rhythm of composition.

Famous paintings by Edvard Munch:“Scream”, “Vampire”, “Girls on the Bridge”, “Madonna”, “Four Ages in Life”.

Norwegian artist Edvard Munch is a man of the north: with a complex, contradictory character, poor health and increased sensitivity to changes in nature and weather. Only here, in the north, could expressionism be born - passionate, nervous, deep, opposing the light southern impressionism.

A Few Munch Oddities

Edvard Munch was a very attractive man, but in self-portraits he always mercilessly added several years and wrinkles to himself, looked from the canvases harshly and always without a smile.

The young ladies irrevocably lost their heads from his impressive Viking appearance combined with mysterious modesty, but Munch himself ran away from women who appeared in his life for a very short time anyway. Sometimes he literally ran away. For example, he silently got up and simply changed trains in the middle of his honeymoon.

Critics did not spare Munch: mockery of him artistic techniques and some of the paintings were poisonous and sophisticated. But at the same time, he can be called a real lucky man - he sold his first paintings at the age of 18 and became the first Norwegian artist whose personal exhibition went to Oslo. Munch was only 26 at the time!

He was internally connected with the sea, like a true Norwegian, he believed that the sea should be visible from anywhere in the city, but when he finally settled in his own Ekelyu estate, he surrounded the open workshop with a 4-meter fence.

The oddities of the artist’s character and behavior are manifestations of inner freedom, sincere and not bound by the canons of creativity. “We need to stop writing women who knit and men who read. I will paint people who breathe, feel, love and suffer. People should be imbued with the sacredness of this and take off their hats in front of the paintings, as in church,”- Munch dreamed. That's right, hats off.

Fear of life

Once upon a time it was fun at home, my father told wonderful stories, my mother was alive. Edward was 5 years old when she died and when Dad stopped making up fairy tales and started reading the Bible. Nine years later, 15-year-old sister Sofia also died. Illness and fear are the two most powerful and lasting sensations of childhood, and throughout life.

Since 1879, Edward has been studying disciplinedly to become an engineer, but it only takes him a year to realize that he wants to be an artist. One of the most important women in the life of the future artist is Aunt Karen. It is she who gives him his first drawing lessons and persuades his dissatisfied father, military doctor Christian Munch, to give young man a chance to make a dream come true.

Birth of love

Each of these paintings evokes an outpouring of venom and indignation from critics: “...these are not hands, but fish in shrimp sauce”, “...how long will Munch’s drunken prostitutes be allowed to sleep it off? National Gallery» and in the same spirit.

The first solo exhibition of Edvard Munch in Berlin in 1892 opened and quickly closed with scandal. But with each new scandal, the artist receives recognition and respect from colleagues, literary friends, famous and wealthy art connoisseurs.

The Rise and Decline of Love

Munch happily joins the bohemian gatherings of writers and artists, brings the red-haired beauty Dagny Yuel to the literary circle “At the Black Pig,” who will long become his muse and model for the most sensual paintings, and then the wife of Munch’s friend Pshebyshevsky. He gets caught up in his most painful, sweet and long affair with the beautiful Tulla Larsen, which ends with Tulla attempting to commit suicide and Munch getting shot in the finger.

Sick and impressionable from birth, suffering from loneliness and mania of persecution, the artist could not stand the test of alcohol and people and in 1908 went to the hospital with nervous breakdown.

Death

But Edvard Munch will die in 1944 alone, in his mansion, in a city occupied by the Germans. Those Germans who, once in power, disgustedly got rid of Munch's paintings, selling them from German museums to private collections.

Description iconic works famous master.

Edvard Munch (1863–1944)

Contribution to modern art

Works of a Norwegian artist Edvard Munch often associated with movements such as symbolism, expressionism and aestheticism. Each of them is in one way or another connected with Art Nouveau, which appeared in Germany in late XIX century. Until 1879, Edvard Munch wanted to become an engineer, but illness prevented him.

In 1882–1883 ​​he took painting lessons at a college in Oslo. Then in 1885 he visits Paris and becomes acquainted with Impressionism, Neo-Impressionism and Symbolism, as well as Art Nouveau. At this time, pictorial and graphic posters began to appear in Paris and advertising posters in Art Nouveau style. Munch's visualization of the psychological trauma he suffered in his early youth became one of the manifestations of expressionism. The significance of Munch for modern art lies in the fact that the images he created combine synthetism and bold coloring with the graphic convention of a flat solution.

Germanic influences

Returning to Paris, the artist spent some time visiting the studio of Léon Bonn (1833–1922). Munch's works are already appearing in German and French art magazines. In 1892, the Union of Berlin Artists (Verdin Berliner Kimstlef) invited Edvard Munch to participate in the association's November exhibition. However, the artist’s works, difficult to understand both in content and in form, were met with unkindness; then, in protest against the tastes of ordinary people, the Eleven group arose, which supported Munch.

The artist struck up friendships with such German artists and literary figures such as Julius Meyer-Graefe (1867–1935) and Richard Demel (1863–1920). He was also supported by the Swedish writer, photographer and artist August Strindberg (1849–1912) and the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906), who were in Berlin at that time, for whom Munch made scenery sketches. Friendly relations Munch was given the opportunity to continue working with these people. While in Berlin, he visited the homes and workshops of German intellectuals, where he could see decorative works made in the Art Nouveau style, which in turn was influenced by the prints of the Japanese Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849).

Scream

The influence that everything he saw in Paris and Berlin had on Munch’s work is felt in his painting Scream(1893). This work, done on cardboard in oil, tempera and pastel, represents one of several author's versions. In the foreground, Munch depicted a lonely young woman in a state of passion. She covered her ears with her hands, trying to drown out the sounds and disconnect from all reality. A long scream emerges from her open mouth. The exaggerated curves of the woman’s body are likened to the curved lines of the landscape, as if twisting into a spiral. She is both part of the landscape and separated from it. Two figures are moving towards the woman, and this further emphasizes her loneliness.

On the other side of the wooden balustrade, Munch represents the terrifying elements of the coastal landscape and the river. Munch depicted the heavens as a restless fermentation of red, cream and green stripes. The artist conveys the state of his heroine through deformed forms and distorted colors, thereby associating himself with symbolism and emerging expressionism. Although perspective cuts are present in the background, her fantastic colors further enhance the overall impression of the conventionality of constructing a flat picture space.

Munch's painting does not create an image of reality, but only conveys an idea of ​​it. The work Scream is part of a painting cycle Frieze of life, dedicated to eternal themes: love and death. “These paintings represent impressions, moods of the life of the soul,” Munch explained. In them, he sublimates his psychological youth traumas associated with the frantic religiosity of his father, with the death of his mother and sister. Again and again he will return to these painful topics. In Munch’s works, the pain of personal loss is felt so acutely that the viewer sees in them not chips from reality, but precisely the state of a suffering soul.

Heroines of Munch

From 1892 to 1908, Munch divided his time between Berlin and Paris. He is painting a picture Madonna(circa 1894–1895). If you compare it with work Transitional age(1894), which conveys the innocence and timidity of a naked young girl sitting in bed and looking directly at the viewer, in Madonna Munch speaks of the power of beauty and its self-sufficiency. Both of these pictures cause some confusion. The naked young Madonna faces the viewer, but does not seem to notice her nakedness. Her head with a red halo is thrown back, long hair, thick and dark, frame the face and, falling on the shoulders, flow to the waist. In her one can see the romantic predecessor of the bright, decorative half-naked heroines of Alphonse Mucha and Judith by Gustav Klimt (1901).

In the picture Three ages of a woman(Sphinx) (1893–1895) Munch combined the youth of the heroine of Adolescence and the eroticism of the Madonna. Here the artist presented three female figures, and each of them symbolizes a certain age from childhood to old age. It is worth noting that the theme of three ages also appears in Klimt’s work of the same name.

Three ages of Munch's woman

Edvard Munch (Norwegian Edvard Munch; December 12, 1863, Løten, Hedmark - January 23, 1944, Ekelu, near Oslo) - Norwegian painter and graphic artist, theater artist, art theorist. One of the first representatives of expressionism. His work influenced modern Art. Munch's work is captured by the motives of death, loneliness, but at the same time the thirst for life.

Edvard Munch was born in 1863 to the family of military doctor Christian Munch and his wife, Laura Katrina Munch (née Bjolstad). He was the second child in the family: he had elder sister, Johanna Sofia, two younger ones - Inger and Laura, and brother Andreas. Although the Munchs did not live richly, even poorly, they came from a culturally influential family: their distant relative was the famous neoclassical artist, a student of Jacques-Louis David, Jacob Munch, Christian's father was a famous preacher, his brother, Peter Andreas Munch, was an outstanding historian.

Throughout Edvard's childhood, the Munchs moved several times, partly at the request of his father's work, partly due to a lack of money, which forced them to look for cheaper housing. The future artist spent most of his childhood years in Christiania, the capital of Norway (now Oslo). When Edward was five years old, his mother died of tuberculosis (10 years later the same disease would take her to the grave eldest daughter Sophie), and her sister, Karen Bjolstad, took charge of the household. The father, according to the artist, was kind to the children, but was distinguished by a morbid religiosity that “reached the point of psychoneurosis”: under the influence of his “sermons,” the impressionable Edward slept poorly at night, haunted by visions of hell. Judging by the recollections of relatives, already at this age the boy showed famous talent to drawing.

When Edward was fifteen years old, Sophie died. The death of his sister, with whom he was very close, left a deep imprint on the future artist: his biographers associate his final disappointment in traditional religion with this event - he later recalled how his father “walked back and forth across the room, his hands folded in prayer,” and could do nothing to help the dying girl. Memories of Sophie's illness and death formed the basis of one of his first large paintings- “The Sick Girl”, as well as the lesser-known “Spring”, designed in the impressionistic style, and - indirectly - a whole series of paintings based on the plot of the “room of the dying”. Soon misfortune befell his other sister, Laura: oddities appeared in her behavior, which became more and more noticeable over time, and after some time she was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

In 1879, Edward entered a technical college, where he showed excellent success in physics, chemistry and mathematics, despite the fact that his fragile health prevented him from fully studying. IN next year However, he decided to leave college and become an artist - to the displeasure of his father, in whose eyes this choice was questionable from both a material and moral point of view. Aunt Karen and Christian Munch’s close friend Karl Fredrik Diericks, as well as distant relative, influential artist Fritz Thaulow. In 1881 Edward entered the Royal School of Drawing in Christiania. During this period, the naturalist artist and colleague of Fritz Thaulow, Christian Krogh, became his mentor. He introduced Edward into the circle of metropolitan bohemia, central figure which was the scandalous anarchist writer Hans Jäger. Munch met Jäger only a few years later, but they became close friends quite quickly and the artist subsequently acknowledged his influence.

In 1883, Munch made his public debut - he presented a painting called “Study of a Head” at an exhibition of industrial goods and works of art in the Palace Park. In the autumn of the same year, he presented at the Autumn Exhibition a painting in a realistic spirit, “A Girl Lighting a Fire in a Stove.” At the end of 1884, with the assistance of Fritz Thaulow, the artist received a scholarship, which allowed him to travel to France in the spring and attend the Paris Salon.

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Edvard Munch (Norwegian Edvard Munch; December 12, 1863, Løten, Norway - January 23, 1944, Ekeli, near Oslo, Norway) was a Norwegian painter and graphic artist who gravitated toward symbolism and expressionism.

Edvard Munch was the second child of military doctor Christian Munch. When Edward was five years old, his mother died of tuberculosis, and in 1877, his older sister Sophie, who was fifteen years old, died of the same disease.

My mother, who died young, gave me a tendency to tuberculosis, and my easily excitable father, a fanatically pious descendant of an ancient family, sowed the seeds of madness in me... From the moment of my birth, the angels of anxiety, worry and death were always nearby... I often woke up at night, looked around the room and asked himself: “Am I in hell?”

Munch Edvard

In 1879, Munch entered the Oslo Technical High School, but soon transferred to State Academy arts and artistic crafts. At first his teacher was the sculptor Middlethun, and from 1882 the painter Christian Krogh.

In 1885, he was given the opportunity to travel to Paris, where he attended the eighth and final Impressionist exhibition. At the same time, he created his first widely known painting, “The Sick Girl,” which reflected the illness and death of Sophie Munch. The artist's first personal exhibition took place in 1889. He then went to Europe thanks to a scholarship, living in Paris and Berlin.

In Germany, Munch exhibited with local artists, but his paintings provoked a scandal, so his exhibition was closed early.

Later, many of these artists became part of the Berlin Secession. There, Munch became close friends with the Polish writer Stanislaw Przybyszewski and his Norwegian wife Danya Przybyszewska (née Juel). The latter became Munch's muse for several years. She posed for him for many famous paintings, including “Madonna”, “Vampire”, “Jealousy”, “Kiss”.

In the late 1890s, Munch worked on a series of paintings called “Frieze of Life - a poem about love, life and death.” It includes works united by the themes of love, femininity, fear, despair and death. Munch created many of these paintings in several versions throughout his life, returning to the same theme again and again. For example, "Madonna" and "Sick Girl" exist in five copies each.

In 1893, Munch created The Scream, his most famous work. The Scream is considered a landmark event in Expressionism; Munch managed to convey the horror that gripped the hero purely artistic means: color scheme and twisting lines, in the center of which is the hero.

I was walking along the road with two friends, suddenly the sun set and the whole sky turned bloody, and I seemed to feel a breath of melancholy. I paused and leaned on the balustrade of the bridge, mortally tired. Plumes of bloody steam hung over the blue-black fjord and the city. My friends moved on, but I was left with an open wound in my chest. A loud, endless scream pierced the surrounding nature.