EDVARD MUNCH - THEME AND VARIATION

EDVARD MUNCH (1863-1944)

Love and jealousy, loneliness, angst, and death. The paintings and works on paper presented in this book provide a fascinating look at Munch's disturbing variations on fundamental themes of human experience.

Loneliness, jealousy, love, death. Hardly any other artist has explored the basic experiences of human life and personal angst more forcefully and with such unsettling images as the Norwegian painter and graphic artist Edvard Munch. His depiction of the crisis of the individual makes Munch a representative of modern consciousness, and the form he uses to express this inner drama makes him a precursor and founder of Expressionism. Munch's entire creative period is characterized by a continuous return to his central motifs.
On the basis of more than 70 paintings and 140 works on paper shown at the exhibition, this Albertina publication contains essays by well-known authors in the field, and for the first time provides an analysis of the emergence, development and inner fabric of theme and variation in Munch´s oeuvre. Different versions and renditions of paintings like The Scream, Melancholy, Jealousy - all icons of Modernism - are presented side by side. Additionally, the book shows the close relationship between the artist´s graphic and painterly works, for Munch´s interest in a motif was not only restrained to painting. He also transformed his themes into printed media such as lithographs, etchings and woodcuts, all impressively documented in this book. 

 Edited by Klaus Albrecht Schröder, Albertina Wien, texts by Christoph Asendorf, Marian Bisanz-Prakken, Dieter Buchhart, Antonia Hoerschelmann, Klaus Albrecht Schröder u.a.