Artists_amp_amp_Illustrators__July_2016_

82 Artists & Illustrators

EDVARD MUNCH

ARTY FACTS

GEMMA TAYLOR EXPLORES THE WORK OF THE IRREVERENT NORWEGIAN EXPRESSIONIST

HE USED TEMPERA ON

UNPRIMED CANVAS

Munch’s most important

innovation in developing his frieze

pictures was his novel technique

of using tempera on unprimed

canvas. It gave a deep, luminous

glow to the colours, so that

beneath the matte surface, the

pictures convey an evocative

impression of the intense light of

the Norwegian midsummer night.

HE HAD A HUGE

CAPACITY FOR

PSYCHODRAMA

By 1889, at the age of 26,

Munch’s mother, father and sister

had all passed away. This lifetime

of trauma is reflected in his

painted studies of The Sick Child.

Munch once said, “I am

convinced that there is hardly a

painter among them who drained

his subject to the very last bitter

drop as I did in The Sick Child.”

HE REFUSED TO PAINT REALISTIC

BACKGROUNDS

Munch’s rejection of detailed backdrops in his

portraits suggests he only painted what he saw as

essential. Often subjects are seen emerging from an

unfathomable depth created using thinned oil paint,

hastily applied in patches. This contrast between the

extreme precision of his faces and the almost

abstract setting gives his painting a vivid immediacy.

HE WAS SEEN AS A

MORAL THREAT

The 19th-century public took

exception to the fact that Munch’s

subjects went beyond the bounds

of ‘good taste’. To make his

paintings more accessible, he

started to present them in series,

explaining that they dealt with

love and death. In 1902, the

Berlin Secession gallery showed

his pictures in systemic sequence

for the first time.

HE CHALLENGED THE VALUE OF

PHOTOGRAPHY

Munch was fond of photography and dabbled in

experimental camera work. Yet his sense of the

difference between photography and painting was

acute: “The camera cannot compete with the painter

as long as it cannot be used in Heaven or Hell.”

Munch: Images of life and Death is published by

Taschen, £10. http://www.taschen.com

ABOVE Two

Human Beings,

The Lonely

Ones 1905, oil

on canvas,

80x110cm

PRIVATE COLLECTION © MUNCH MUSEUM, OSLO

82 MunchNEW.indd 82 12/05/2016 11:44