Shan Sivakumaran
Edvard Munch…
A Biography
Norwegian artist Edvard Munch was one of the earliest in the expressionist movement. He was born on December 12th, 1863 and died on January 23rd, 1944. He was born in Loten, North of Christiania (Now known as Oslo), specifically in the village of Adalsbruk. Majority of his life, Edvard lived in Ekly, Norway.
As a child Edvard faced many tragic events and griefs. The death of his mother when he was just 5 years old happens to be one, the death of his sisters and the death of his father. This happened to influence his paintings. Many of his paintings involved illness, death and grief. Both his mother and sister Sophie died of tuberculosis. This was a lung disease that spread rapidly in the late 1800s.
After finishing secondary school (high school), he attended technical college to become an engineer in 1879. The following year, he left the college to become a painter. In 1881 he joined the Royal School of Drawing, and painted a self portrait of himself with a cigarette. He studied the nude paintings of older masters. In 1885 he began his famous painting “The Sick Child”. This, amongst many other paintings was influenced by the illness and deaths of his family.
Edward never got married although he had an affair with a woman that didn’t end quite well. He then became an alcoholic and this influenced more of his sorrow paintings. In 1889 Edward went to Paris, he was a pupil of Leon Bonnat. Shortly after travelling to France, he was informed of his father’s death. At this point, Edvard was a heavy alcoholic, suffering from loneliness and melancholy. Through it all, he painted the painting night, which portrays what was within his mind. The dark interior of the room and the lonely person by the window expresses the loneliness he felt.
Edvard enjoyed using both acrylic and water color paint. Besides painting he was a print maker, worked in etching, lithography and wood engraving. His work influenced German...