The exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery presents all stages of the creative path of the Norwegian artist, a classic of European modernism
https://i.pinimg.com/564x/4d/79/c9/4d79c9566d710c1c78deda0c80aeb453.jpgEdward Munch (1863-1944) was a famous modernist, but not in everything and everyone understood the artist. The phenomenal popularity of his painting "The Scream", one of the most quoted works of world painting, gives too superficial idea of the great master. The exhibition at the State Tretyakov Gallery "Edward Munch. Dance of Life" should help to learn and appreciate the complexity and depth of the artistic heritage of the great Norwegian. The exhibition was brought from the Munch Museum to Oslo, where most of the works created in the twentieth century are kept, and the earliest and most famous paintings - "Girls on the Bridge", "Madonna" and the same "Scream" - are presented in a graphic version or, as "Death of Marat", "Maturation" and "Dance of Life", in author's repetitions. A happy discovery for the public will be a late, mature Munch - not as bright as in his youth, but piercing and wise.
The exhibition is built on thematic sections: self-portraits, portraits, landscapes, the cycle of life and death "The frieze of life" and the paintings associated with it, separately shown graphics, photographs and documentary materials. And this seems to be enough not only to get an idea of the originality of Munch's easily recognizable manner, but also to trace the development of his work, the natural transition from symbolism to expressionism as a consequence of a new understanding of the essence and objectives of art. Staying true to himself, Munch changed both as a human being and as an artist, together with the modern world and with art, which, as the modernists claimed, was meant to reflect this modernity.
Munch's work is often explained by his biography. The death of his mother, when the artist was five years old, ten years later, the death of his beloved sister from the same tuberculosis, his father's extreme religiosity, then bohemian life, drinking and drinking, his nervous breakdown and treatment in the clinic, fatal love affairs. It seems that the dramatic circumstances of life, the peculiarities of psyche and character can be explained by the plots of paintings with depressing titles "Melancholy", "Murderer", "Death", "Smell of Death", and, of course, "Scream" as the apotheosis of existential horror. But this is an illusion.
Of course, Munch wrote about himself, his feelings and suffering, fears and anxieties. "I was trying to explain life and its meaning to myself with my art, and I wanted to help understand the lives of others," he said. But for him, creativity was a conscious, reflexive affair. Munch thought through and arranged his paintings, conveying emotions in them, but did not obey them. "Everything must be written with intent and with feeling. There is no use in bringing into the picture of things that are not felt and unintentional. So the biography, by the way, is not so unique for the artist, not much determines. Moreover, Munch lived a long time, worked a lot, received fame early, and soon the European recognition, in adulthood he had orders for the design of public buildings (though not everything he wanted), wrote several repetitions of his most famous works. This is a biography of a successful professional, not a nervous genius.
Munch was a man of his time, European and Norwegian. He received his professional education at the Royal Art School in his native Christianity, as Oslo was then called. The Norwegian Academy of Arts did not exist at the time, but there were good artists in this cultural province, and Munch could learn from them.
One of the first publicly exhibited paintings of the artist - "The Sick Child" - caused dissatisfaction of critics of his, as it seemed to them, carelessness of execution, incompleteness - a reaction, we do not understand now. Six years later, on November 5, 1892, the Munch exhibition in Berlin was louder than a scandal, and again not because of the subjects of the paintings, but because of their embodiment: serious German artists saw in it the harmful influence of French impressionism. The exhibition was shot a week later, but Munch was not upset about it - the scandal, he foretold, will bring popularity. And so it happened. He signed a contract with a gallery owner, and the exhibition opened in Cologne and Düsseldorf, the public grabbed tickets for it (by the way, a third of the amount received by the artist as a fee).