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Karen Bjølstad in the Rocking Chair
1883
Oil on canvas, 47 × 41 cm
Munch Museum, Oslo
There were five children altogether, of which Edvard was the second-born and eldest son. Early on, Munch understood that he had a difficult two-fold heritage to contend with: the physical threat of tuberculosis, which first carried off his mother and then his elder sister, and the faint but distinct possibility of mental instability. Laura Munch died at the age of thirty, shortly after the birth of her fifth child.
My Brother Studying Anatomy
1883
Oil on cardboard, 62 × 75 cm
Munch Museum, Oslo
The effect on the family may be imagined. The father suffered most acutely, the younger children carrying only the haziest memories of their mother into later life. But the consciousness of loss never left them.
His father’s religiosity became more pronounced after Laura’s death, to the point where the children’s anxiety about offending against Christian principles instilled in them a palpable fear of eternal damnation.
Girl Lighting a Stove
1883
Oil on canvas, 96.5 × 66 cm
Private collection
The unhappiness of his childhood experience of death was compounded by his father’s unpredictable behaviour. Munch and his brother and sisters were never quite sure how their father’s fanatical piety was going to manifest itself – but they could rely on the fact that they would be made to feel inadequate either as dutiful Christians or as obedient children.
Morning (A Servant Girl)
1884
Oil on canvas, 96.5 × 103.8 cm
Private collection, Bergen
At times Dr Munch’s playful nature, suppressed almost totally by his sadness at the death of his young wife, would resurface briefly and he would play with his children like any normal father. But then the blackness would reassert itself, and he would lash out violently.
Portrait of the Painter Karl Jensen-Hjell
1885
Oil on canvas, 190 × 100 cm
Private collection
Indeed, in later life Munch would write that his father became almost insane for short periods. This must have been quite terrifying for a sensitive, quiet young boy who was himself prone to frequent bouts of illness. The death of his sister Sophie, the eldest child, when Edvard was thirteen, caused him even more profound suffering than had the loss of his mother when he was five.
Tête-à-tête
1885
Oil on canvas, 66 × 76 cm
Munch Museum, Oslo
He watched anxiously as his father prayed over the girl, unable to do anything for her. To him, and to Sophie, Dr Munch’s promises of eternal heaven meant nothing compared with her burning desire to live.
Her struggles were unbearable to watch. Edvard’s utter helplessness and sorrow were channelled some years later into a painting that he returned to obsessively: the marvellous The Sick Child, the first version of which was executed in 18851886. (There were to be six versions altogether, created at roughly ten-year intervals.) In this large painting, almost four feet square (120 cm), he struggled throughout his life to express what he felt so intensely about his sister’s death.
Self-Portrait
1886
Oil on wood, 33 × 24.5 cm
Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo
The Spring
1889
Oil on canvas, 169 × 263.5 cm
Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo
During her last illness she repeatedly pleaded for help, for relief from pain – neither Edvard nor his doctor father was able to provide it. This incapability was transformed into a feeling of guilt that he had survived and she had not. His attempts to put himself in her place in the picture were doomed to failure, just as he had failed to take her place as she lay dying. To the end of his life he was unable to resolve this.
Portrait of the Author Hans Jaeger
1889
Oil on canvas, 109 × 84 cm
Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo
His guilt is poured into the picture, which is almost unbearably poignant. The young girl’s face is already a ghost, almost disembodied as she silently yearns to go on living. With its deep layers of meaning and evocation of the state of the artist’s soul, this can fairly be termed one of the first Expressionist paintings.
Spring Day on Karl Johan Street
1890
Oil on canvas, 80 × 100 cm
Bergen Billedgalleri, Bergen
He himself termed it ‘a breakthrough’ in his style, and the collector and critic Jens Thiis, later Munch’s biographer, called it ‘the first monumental figure painting in our Norwegian art’.[1]
The emphasis on religious piety (which appeared to not do the slightest good, as prayers for the life of mother and sister went unheeded), and the authoritarianism of a father who punished disproportionately for the most minor transgressions, came together in Munch’s mind to give him a view of God as unjust, full of anger, and entirely without compassion. Although he did not dare to contradict his father by refusing to go to church, by the time he was in his early twenties he had reached the conclusion that God did not exist, and that there was no eternity.
Night in St Cloud
1890
Oil on canvas, 64.5 × 54 cm
Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo
The Seine at St Cloud
1890
Oil on canvas, 61 × 49.8 cm
Gift from Mrs Morris Hadley (Katherine Blodgett class of 1920), 1962
The Frances and Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York
This belief in the non-existence of God remained broadly unaltered throughout the rest of his life, though he changed his mind about the possibility of a continued existence in a kind of afterlife. With some bravery, Munch took the decision to become a painter