'Happy' 150th Birthday Munch

Today marks the 150th birthday of the Norwegian visionary Edvard Munch. Like many of his generation, Munch sought truth, the raw truth of emotion in his work. Few, however, tapped that nerve quite so successfully. Contemporary and fellow painter Christian Krohg, less severe in his pursuit of physical and emotional realism, said of Munch that:

He paints, or rather regards, things in a way that is different from that of other artists. He sees only the essential, and that, naturally, is all he paints. For this reason Munch's pictures are as a rule 'not complete', as people are so delighted to discover for themselves. Oh, yes, they are complete. His complete handiwork. Art is complete once the artist has really said everything that was on his mind, and this is precisely the advantage Munch has over painters of the other generation, that he really knows how to show us what he has felt, and what has gripped him, and to this he subordinates everything else. 

Click here for more information on the Munch Museum in Oslo.

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