1863 -1944 · Nordic symbolism, expressionism and the frieze of life

Undulating lines, incandescent skies, haunted faces and universal themes make Munch the great modern painter of anguish, desire and memory.

Edvard Munch was born in 1863 in Løten, Norway, and grew up in Kristiania in a family marked by illness and bereavement. Trained at the Royal School of Drawing, he attended Kristiania's bohemia then discovered Manet, the Impressionists, Van Gogh, Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec in Paris. Very early on, Munch refused descriptive naturalism to paint states of the soul. The Sick Child transforms the memory of his sister Sophie into a fragile surface; The Sick Child transforms the memory of his sister Sophie into a fragile surface; The Scream, Madonna, Vampire and The Dance of Life belong to the Friesland of Life, a vast cycle devoted to love, anguish and death. In Berlin in the 1890s, his exhibition caused a scandal which increased his notoriety. Painter but also an extraordinarily inventive engraver, he uses his motifs in several versions and techniques. After a crisis in 1908, his palette became clearer; the landscapes, self-portraits and decorations of the University of Oslo give monumental energy to maturity. Based in Ekely, he worked until his death in 1944 and bequeathed to Oslo an immense set of paintings, drawings, prints, photographs and sculptures. The "Edvard Munch" selection notably compares The Scream and The Dance of Life. His reading favors details.

Munch doesn't describe emotion: he distorts the line, color and landscape until the whole world seems to feel it.