Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch (1863-1944) was a Norwegian symbolist who influenced German Expressionism. His mother and sister died of tuberculosis, and he himself was a sickly child. His father homeschooled him, but was neurotically religious. Munch says, “The angels of fear, sorrow, and death stood by my side since the day I was born.”
He studied engineering, but switched to art, which his father disapproved of. He fell in with nihilists and bohemians, and became pretty cynical about women as well. He rejected Impressionism, preferring to go deeply into the emotions. After his father’s death, he wrote, “I live with the dead–my mother, my sister, my grandfather, my father ... Kill yourself and then it’s over. Why live?” Today we’d say he was depressed. In my grandfather’s bohemian circles, such unhappiness was a necessary part of being an artist.
He visited Paris and lived in Berlin, where he boozed and brawled with the best of them. He experimented with Fauvism. After returning to Norway, his work became a bit more cheerful. WWI found him with divided loyalties, to France and Germany. There was some question about his Nazi sympathies in WWII. About his death, he wrote, “From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity.” My artist grandparents both said that too. Wow.
His art went all over the map, but unlike Picasso, my impression is that he was thrashing around instead of painting with a confident style (perhaps I see this because my own style is so unsettled).
He studied engineering, but switched to art, which his father disapproved of. He fell in with nihilists and bohemians, and became pretty cynical about women as well. He rejected Impressionism, preferring to go deeply into the emotions. After his father’s death, he wrote, “I live with the dead–my mother, my sister, my grandfather, my father ... Kill yourself and then it’s over. Why live?” Today we’d say he was depressed. In my grandfather’s bohemian circles, such unhappiness was a necessary part of being an artist.
He visited Paris and lived in Berlin, where he boozed and brawled with the best of them. He experimented with Fauvism. After returning to Norway, his work became a bit more cheerful. WWI found him with divided loyalties, to France and Germany. There was some question about his Nazi sympathies in WWII. About his death, he wrote, “From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity.” My artist grandparents both said that too. Wow.
His art went all over the map, but unlike Picasso, my impression is that he was thrashing around instead of painting with a confident style (perhaps I see this because my own style is so unsettled).
The Scream of Nature
This is one of several paintings, pastels, and lithographs with the same title and composition that Munch did between 1893-1910. Munch also wrote a poem about it. He said, "I was walking along a path with two friends – the sun was setting – suddenly the sky turned blood red – I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence – there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city – my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety – and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature." It's a scene painted near the insane asylum where his sister was then living.
The emotional power of this painting blasts at you. Obviously, Munch was deeply affected by the scream that he heard in his mind, I imagine an existential scream much like the feeling of existential nausea that Sartre wrote about in 1938. We've all heard it, late at night when we're alone and have eaten too much chili. Munch manages to convey the jangled feeling by juxtaposing orange and blue on the horizon, swirling things around, and slashing black throughout. Even the scrapes he made in the ocean add to the scrapy feeling. The title is "The Scream of Nature," but there are in fact no plants or animals in the painting, just a mummy-figure in front and some distorted genderless figures in the background.
The emotional power of this painting blasts at you. Obviously, Munch was deeply affected by the scream that he heard in his mind, I imagine an existential scream much like the feeling of existential nausea that Sartre wrote about in 1938. We've all heard it, late at night when we're alone and have eaten too much chili. Munch manages to convey the jangled feeling by juxtaposing orange and blue on the horizon, swirling things around, and slashing black throughout. Even the scrapes he made in the ocean add to the scrapy feeling. The title is "The Scream of Nature," but there are in fact no plants or animals in the painting, just a mummy-figure in front and some distorted genderless figures in the background.
Munch Lesson
Lesson Title: Munch and Composition
Grade: K - 9 self-contained classroom
Key Vocabulary: Composition, balance, highlight, symmetry, repetition, focal point
Visuals/Resources: Munch's paintings, NEA composition website
Connections to Prior Knowledge: Some of the acting games we use have to do with understanding what other children are doing and where they are standing.
Content Objectives: 1. Identify composition strategies (central focus, pyramid, gaze, light and dark, off-balance)
2. be able to reproduce in cartoon form selected Munch paintings (from memory, for the older kids), and
3. create your own scene with an intentional composition strategy.
Meaningful Activities: 1. Mini-lecture on Munch.
2. 15-minute stations: line drawings of Munch paintings for copying.
3. 30-minute masterwork session: create your own scene with an intentional composition strategy in your art journal.
Supplies: Teacher-made exemplars.
Review/Assessment: Art journal
Language Objective: Use appropriate vocabulary when sharing journal.
Grade: K - 9 self-contained classroom
Key Vocabulary: Composition, balance, highlight, symmetry, repetition, focal point
Visuals/Resources: Munch's paintings, NEA composition website
Connections to Prior Knowledge: Some of the acting games we use have to do with understanding what other children are doing and where they are standing.
Content Objectives: 1. Identify composition strategies (central focus, pyramid, gaze, light and dark, off-balance)
2. be able to reproduce in cartoon form selected Munch paintings (from memory, for the older kids), and
3. create your own scene with an intentional composition strategy.
Meaningful Activities: 1. Mini-lecture on Munch.
2. 15-minute stations: line drawings of Munch paintings for copying.
3. 30-minute masterwork session: create your own scene with an intentional composition strategy in your art journal.
Supplies: Teacher-made exemplars.
Review/Assessment: Art journal
Language Objective: Use appropriate vocabulary when sharing journal.