Edvard Munch
Norwegian
1863-1944
Edvard Munch Locations
Edvard Munch (pronounced , December 12, 1863 ?C January 23, 1944) was a Norwegian Symbolist painter, printmaker, and an important forerunner of expressionistic art. His best-known composition, The Scream is one of the pieces in a series titled The Frieze of Life, in which Munch explored the themes of life, love, fear, death, and melancholy.
Edvard Munch was born in a rustic farmhouse in the village of Adalsbruk in Loten, Norway to Christian Munch, the son of a prominent priest. Christian was a doctor and medical officer, who married Laura Cathrine Bjølstad, a woman half his age, in 1861. Edvard had an older sister, Johanne Sophie (born 1862), and three younger siblings: Peter Andreas (born 1865), Laura Cathrine (born 1867), and Inger Marie (born 1868). Both Sophie and Edvard appear to have gotten their art talent from their mother. Edvard Munch was related to painter Jacob Munch (1776?C1839) and historian Peter Andreas Munch (1810?C1863).
The family moved to Kristiania (now Oslo) in 1864 when Christian Munch was appointed medical officer at Akershus Fortress. Edvard??s mother died of tuberculosis in 1868, as did Munch's favorite sister Johanne Sophie in 1877. After their mother's death, the Munch siblings were raised by their father and by their aunt Karen. Often ill for much of the winters and kept out of school, Edvard would draw to keep himself occupied. He also received tutoring from his school mates and his aunt. Christian Munch also instructed his son in history and literature, and entertained the children with vivid ghost stories and tales of Edgar Allan Poe.
Christian??s positive behavior toward his children, however, was overshadowed by his morbid pietism. Munch wrote, ??My father was temperamentally nervous and obsessively religious??to the point of psychoneurosis. From him I inherited the seeds of madness. The angles of fear, sorrow, and death stood by my side since the day I was born.?? Christian reprimanded his children by telling them that their mother was looking down from heaven and grieving over their misbehavior. The oppressive religious milieu, plus Edvard??s poor health and the vivid ghost stories, helped inspire macabre visions and nightmares in Edvard, who felt death constantly advancing on him. One of Munch's younger sisters was diagnosed with mental illness at an early age. Of the five siblings only Andreas married, but he died a few months after the wedding. Munch would later write, "I inherited two of mankind's most frightful enemies??the heritage of consumption and insanity."
Christian Munch??s military pay was very low, and his attempts at developing a private side practice failed, keeping his family in perrenial poverty. They moved frequently from one sordid flat to another. Munch??s early drawings and watercolors depicted these interiors, and the individual objects such as medicine bottles and drawing implements, plus some landscapes. By his teens, art dominated Munch??s interests. At thirteen, Munch has his first exposure to other artists at the newly formed Art Association, were he admired the work of the Norwegian landscape school, and where he returned to copy the paintings, and soon he began to paint in oils. Related Paintings of Edvard Munch :. | Sea | Train | Disappoint | Self-Portrait | Crying Girl | Related Artists: SCHAUFELEIN, Hans LeonhardGerman Northern Renaissance Painter, ca.1480-1540
was a German painter, designer, and wood engraver. He was born in Nuremberg, probably studied under Wohlgemut, and then became the assistant of D??rer, whom he imitated. In 1512 he went to Augsburg and in 1515 removed to Nordlingen. He is a graceful narrator, and his types, though rarely accurately drawn, are attractive, but he lacks power and depth. Characteristic early paintings are the altarpiece at Ober Sankt Veit[1], near Vienna (1502), "Scenes from the Life of Christ" (Dresden Gallery), and "St. Jerome" (Germanic Museum, Nuremberg). To his Nordlingen period belong his masterpiece, the so-called "Ziegler Altar" for St. George's Church (1521), part of which is still in the church, part in the museum; "Scenes from the Story of Judith," in the town hall; and the illuminated Psalter for Count von Ottingen, now in the Berlin print room. His most important woodcuts are those for the Theuerdank of Emperor Maximilian. Haughton Forrest1826-1925 Fujishima takeji1866 - 1929
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