Appreciation of edvard munch's Works

1893

9 1x 73.5 cm

Paper pastel

Oslo National Gallery

1890 began to create the most important series of works in life, Life Group Painting. This set of paintings has a wide range of themes, with the basic theme of eulogizing "life, love and death", revealing the worries and fears of human beings at the end of the century by means of symbols and metaphors. 1893 Monk's oil painting "Scream" is the strongest and most wonderful painting in this group, and it is also one of his important representative works. In this painting, Monk depicts a deformed and screaming figure with extremely exaggerated brushstrokes, showing the extreme loneliness and depression of human beings and the fear in front of the infinite universe to the fullest. Monk himself described the origin of this painting:

"One night I walked along the path-one side of the road was the city, and the other side was the fjord under my feet. Tired and sick, I stopped to look at the fjord-the sun was setting-and the clouds were dyed as red as blood.

"I felt a shrill scream resounding through the heavens and the earth; I thought I heard screams. I drew this picture-I drew clouds like real blood. Those colors are screaming-this is the "screaming" in Life Group Painting. " (Thomas M. Messer, edvard munch, Harry N. abrams Company, new york Publishing House, p. 84. Author translation. )

In this painting, there is no specific object to imply the horror that caused this scream. The image in the center of the picture is creepy. He seems to walk past us and turn to the railing that stretches out into the distance. Covering his ears, he could hardly hear the footsteps of two pedestrians in the distance, nor could he see two ships and church steeples in the distance; Otherwise, the whole loneliness wrapped tightly around him may be slightly relieved. This lonely man, completely isolated from reality, seems to have been completely conquered by his deep fear. This image is highly exaggerated, and the deformed and twisted screaming face is completely comic. Those big eyes and sunken cheeks are reminiscent of bones related to death. This is a ghost call. "This can only be painted by a madman," Monk wrote in the sketch of the painting.

In this painting, the colors used by Monk are related to nature to some extent. Although blue water, brown land, green trees and red sky are all exaggerated and expressive, they have not lost the general authenticity of their colors. The color of the whole painting is depressing: the thick blood red hangs on the horizon, giving people an ominous premonition. It conflicts with the purple in the darkness of the sea; This purple is getting darker and darker because it extends far away. The same purple, repeated in lonely clothes. His hands and head were pale and dull brown-gray.

There is no place in the painting that is not full of turbulence. The twisted curve of the sky and the current is in sharp contrast with the thick and straight diagonal form of the bridge. The whole composition is full of rough and strong rhythm in the dynamic rotation. All the formal elements seem to convey that shrill scream. Here, the painter can be said to use visual symbols to convey the feeling of hearing, turning the terrible scream into visible vibration. This technique of visualizing sound waves may be related to the visualization of force and energy in Van Gogh's masterpiece Starry Night. Here, Monk transforms the extreme inner anxiety caused by screaming into a convincing abstract image. In this way, he almost pushed his emotional expression on the screen to the extreme.

Edvard munch (1863- 1944) is a great Norwegian painter and a pioneer of modern Expressionism painting.

Edward Monk (1863- 1944) is a world-renowned Norwegian artist and a pioneer of western Expressionism painting art. His paintings are strongly subjective and sad. Picasso and Matisse absorbed his artistic nourishment, and some artists in Germany and France also got inspiration from his works.

It has been found that in the art of painting, schizophrenia can stimulate the artistic vitality of people without artistic accomplishment and sometimes increase the creativity of famous artists. Perhaps, as psychologists have pointed out, artists do have potential mental illness tendencies, and artistic creation helps to prevent potential mental disorders from appearing on the surface. A writer once said, "Sometimes I wonder how those who don't write, compose or draw can escape from madness, depression and panic, which always exist in the human situation?" The therapeutic effect of this painting is particularly evident in Expressionism painting's father edvard munch.

Monk 1863 was born in an intellectual family in Norway. His father is a knowledgeable and experienced military doctor, and his mother has a good art education. At the age of 5, my mother died of tuberculosis, and five siblings were taken care of by my aunt. After his mother died, his father was so sad that he didn't go out for several days. His repressed nerves strongly infected Monk who lost his mother. It was the first time in his life that he felt death.

The monk and his sister have a very good relationship and deep feelings. Her death stimulated Monk's nerves again. Then his sister also suffered from schizophrenia. The pain caused by this series of blows was deeply imprinted in Monk's heart. Decided the character of the monk and the tone of his first half. We can clearly see this from his works, such as Sick Child, Death of Mother and Bedside of Soul. Especially after the death of 1889' s father, his spirit became more depressed and his personality became melancholy and withdrawn. The young monk was deeply troubled by feelings of loneliness, despair and death. And their breathing, feelings and pain. During this period, he painted his most important work "Scream". The picture shows a little man running down from the bridge with his mouth open, with the bay and sunset in the foreground. The sky is like a rolling blood-red wave, which makes people feel trembling and horrible, as if the whole nature is bleeding. Speaking of this painting, Monk later said, "I was walking with two friends and the sun was setting." I suddenly stopped listlessly and extremely tired, and my tongue was as bright as blood and fire in the dark straits and roads. When my friends were walking, I stopped there alone and trembled anxiously. I felt a natural strong cry. "

Like all his works, Monk's Scream was drawn through his own experience. He is not artistic for the sake of art, but expresses his melancholy and anxiety. This is the motive force of his creation. It is through his creation that Monk opened his claustrophobic emotional channel and unconsciously revealed his unconscious feelings. Just as Freud thought that dreams can relieve tension to a certain extent, expressing emotions through art can make him reach a more peaceful state. If he didn't express himself through a lot of creation, he might have a premature mental breakdown like his sister.

Unfortunately 1908 Monk is still schizophrenic. During his schizophrenia, his spirit was completely free. After returning to Norway from Copenhagen, Denmark, he still persisted in writing with high enthusiasm. He created a huge mural "The Sun" for the lecture hall of Oslo University, and also painted some simple and natural paintings such as "Snow Sweeping Home" and "Workers' Home". But what his works express is completely different from that before his illness. His works become bright, quiet and philosophical. This is what art historians call the "second period". From the works of this period, we can only draw a conclusion that the pain and conflict in Mock's heart were released without a trace.