Edvard Munch

        Edvard Munch is most well-known for his painting The Scream, which everyone reading this should recognize (it's one of the most recognized images in art). Though he is often written off as a one-hit-wonder, The Scream was only one painting in his series Frieze of Life, which examined life, love and death.
        Munch's works are most often known for their level of anxiety, which has lead to false claims throughout history that he may have had a mental disorder, but Munch was said to have had a good hold on his career, and a stable mind. This becomes clear when looking at his complete works, much of which is as innocuous as pigeons, boats by the shore, and many, many portraits. It is more than anything because his anxiety-driven pieces are so much more interesting and simultaneously alarming that they are all that is ever talked about or stick in our minds. It is these darker, more macabre images that are my favorite as well (I have also found that I am particularly drawn to his depictions of women in these environs, but that does seem to fit my interests). He chose his subject matter well, life, love and death being topics that will strike a heavy chord with just about everyone. The same figures and compositions arise again and again in his work, always slightly altered, making it clear that Munch was trying to work something out, whether that be the concepts or simply the right image.
        Munch is also often assumed to have only been a painter (again, because our common recognition of The Scream overwrites much of our knowledge of the man), however a good portion of his work is prints (etchings, lithographs, drypoint, and woodcuts) - which in my opinion are even better than his paintings. Their aesthetic better reflects the rawness of the topics he often examined. After taking an etching class, I have become really taken with this aesthetic, and Munch has the perfect subject matter (in much of his work) to grab my attention and the talent to back it up.

To see Munch's "complete graphic works", take a look at the Munch Museum website, which has almost 750 images!!!!!! (I almost died when I found this.)




images: munch.museum.no