If you come to Oslo and want to get acquainted with the works of Edvard Munch, the most vivid picture of this Norwegian artist will be given by the canvas painted in 1895: it decorates the central hall with a glass ceiling in the National Gallery of the capital. This canvas - Self-portrait with a lit cigarette. It is instructive to compare it with the portrait of the painter Gerhart Munte, made by Munch's teacher Christian Krog ten years earlier. This comparison immediately makes it clear how far Edvard Munch has come in just fifteen years separating him from the initial stage of creativity.
The scale and purpose of the main work of Munch is so great that in order to characterize them, it is necessary to resort to literary terminology. He worked tirelessly, seeking to create a work that would absorb all aspects of human existence: in other words, "The Frieze of Life." This grandiose plan revives medieval sagas, works of Shakespeare, Herman Melville, Gustave Flaubert and James Joyce.
The first step was taken in 1886, when the artist painted a picture of the Sick Girl and the Lost Early Variants of Canvases and Next Day. Munch said goodbye to naturalism in Christiania, with impressionism in Paris and symbolism in Berlin. And then the grain of his new artistic language fell on clean ground (as part of modernism). This language, more expressive than any artistic methods, was able to embody Munch's intention to say all the most important things about life, love and death.
However, the public treated Munch as a Mazile-crazy thing and considered it a challenge to society, when the theme of his works went, in her opinion, beyond the limits of good taste and morality. But it is not surprising that Munch agrees that his paintings look better in the form of series rather than as separate works.
(My pictures are really difficult to understand, but it seems to me that they will be better understood if you look at them in the context of the series - all of them are connected with love and death. "
(Edvard Munch)
The influential German critic Adolph Rosenberg defamed Munch in terms reminiscent of today's criticism:
“... Portraits are painted on so carelessly that sometimes it is impossible to recognize a human figure. About the paintings of Munch say absolutely nothing, except that they have nothing to do with Art. "
(Adolf Rosenberg)
Particular outrage among the public and critics was caused by such works as Madonna, Paris Nude, Nude and Maturation.
Baptized as immoral and beyond the limits of decency, Munch's paintings are still criticized, considered to be inappropriate and distorting true art. But is it really? Are they a "shame" of painting or glorify it with their originality and uniqueness of the philosophy of their creator?
