Towards the perfect embrace - Munch's quest for the perfect representation of love

"I will paint living people who breathe and feel and love and suffer"

Edvard Munch 

Kiss by the window, 1892 © The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo

To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Edvard Munch this year, The National Art Gallery and the Munch Museum in Oslo present a retrospective of his most famous works. Most people would refer to Edvard Munch as the creator of The Scream and The Madonna. While these paintings certainly are masterpieces, there is an extreme sadness about them. When I visited the Edvard Munch Museum and the National Gallery in Oslo I was more intrigued by Munch's obsession to represent love in his paintings, rather than death, although both were often alike. During his Berlin years he produced some of his most beautiful representations of love, far from the darkness of The Scream. A series of these paintings was exposed for the first time in Berlin, in 1893, in Unter den Linden, under the name "Frieze of Life - a poem about Life, Love and Death", which made Munch a highly controversial figure, while also establishing him as a master of his art.

The Kiss, 1897 © Munch Museum, Oslo

I loved this Kiss mostly because when I came near it in the Munch Museum, a couple of French tourists was staring at it. And I believe they weren't together yet by what they were talking about. The young man was trying to explain to the woman how he saw the embrace, and they seemed to disagree about the woman's position in it. They still had that awkwardness that preceeds love, avoiding each other's eyes, keeping some distance even as they were recreating the embrace with their bodies. It was just very beautiful to witness with this painting in the background. I could have just sneered and found them ridiculous but they were playing a beautiful game and I hope their trip to the museum was worth it. I reckon Munch would have loved these lovers too.

Love and Pain: The Vampire, 1893-4, © The National Art Gallery, Oslo

I found The Vampire interesting because in most of his paintings representing an embrace, Munch depicted women in a submissive way. They are kissed more than they kiss, they are held rather than holding their partners. Yet, in this one, the woman is dominating the scene, and that seemed only possible by giving her the power of a vampire. (In other words, it is very tempting to try to find out what kind of relationship the painter had with his partners.)

The Dance of Life, 1899 © The National Art Gallery, Oslo

The Dance of Life made me think of a scene from Thomas Hardy's novel Tess of the D'Ubervilles. I read on an art blog that the sun's reflection in the water was a phallic representation which gave the painting its sexual connotation. I'm aware of that, and of Eros and Thanatos etc, but maybe sometimes a painting ought to be appreciated without over-analysing it. It might well be true but somehow I think the sexually charged atmosphere is due to the dancing couples representing the various stages of life. And to me the interlacing of fingers in this one for example is a highly erotic representation, more so than the sun, and so are the embraces in the background, but maybe this is a simple-minded reading of the painting. Then I remember that "That which, perhaps, hears more nonsense than anything in the world, is a picture in a museum." (Edmond de Goncourt), and I just feel like not explaining beauty anymore.

Preliminary study for The Kiss

"Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye...it also includes the inner pictures of the soul"

Edvard Munch