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拍品專文
This double-sided work was executed during Munch’s most formative years, when he developed his characteristic style and produced his most iconic pictures. Each side of the sheet relates to a separate series of works that Munch continued to develop in oils and prints; however, together they share Munch’s ambition to search for the most profound of human emotions, drawing upon memories from his childhood with a complex array of reactions and feelings.
The recto presents an interior scene populated with typically Munchian characters, their brooding faces, deep-set eyes, and the exaggerated, taut contours of their magnified skulls recalling skeletal or mask-like forms – a reminder of our shared destiny, veering towards the realm of vanitas. In the present drawing, the figures are arranged like a cast on a stage set, with family members rigid in their individual grief, locked within their own interior happenings and unable to communicate with each other. In the centre, propped up against a pillow, sits the son in frail health. In an oil that the subsequently painted of the subject, Munch places greater focus on this central character, adding a glowing halo around the son’s face and removing several of the surrounding figures. With a greater population, in the present work we are faced with a much livelier scene, recalling Munch’s earlier oeuvre. In its subject matter, the recto recalls ‘Death in the Sickroom’ (1893), which, set in his childhood home, recalls the illness and death of the artist’s sister; Munch’s expressive handling of figure, furthermore, nods to the staring faces with which we are confronted in his iconic painting, ‘Evening on Karl Johan Street’ (1892).
The verso of the sheet depicts a small, wide-eyed girl, who, clasping her hands over her ears, demands the viewer’s attention with her intense and questioning gaze. Whilst her mouth is firmly shut, her large eyes transfix the onlooker, conveying to the viewer a story of silent desperation and tragic loss. The drawing is a preparatory study for ‘Death and the Child’, painted by Munch in 1899 and now in the Kunsthalle, Bremen, which depicts a young girl with similar features standing in front of her deceased mother, holding the same pose as that of the present sketch. A further comparison can be made with a different iteration of the subject painted in the same year and now in the Munch-Museet in Oslo. These renderings all share an emphasis on the enigmatic, psychological reaction of the central figure, rather than the main event taking place in the background – a trait typical throughout Munch’s artistic production. The tragedy concealed behind the wide eyes of the small girl is excruciating, almost palpable.
Having revisited this very subject in two paintings and several related etchings and sketches, it is clear that this scene must have been of particular significance for the artist. It takes its inspiration, in part, from Max Klinger’s highly wrought composition ‘Dead Mother’ (1889), and is connected to a crucial event from Munch’s biography: the death of the his own mother in 1868, when he was just 5 years old. Considering that the artist had three sisters, one can imagine that the motif of a small girl standing in front of her dead mother may have stemmed from his own personal memories: when working on this subject, Munch ‘moved away from anything symbolic or archetypal to a recollection molten with personal meaning’ (S. Prideaux, Edvard Munch. Behind the Scream, London, 2005, p. 211). After all, his beloved sister Sophie, who also died prematurely in 1877, may have reacted to the death of her mother in a similar manner as the child depicted in the present drawing.
The recto presents an interior scene populated with typically Munchian characters, their brooding faces, deep-set eyes, and the exaggerated, taut contours of their magnified skulls recalling skeletal or mask-like forms – a reminder of our shared destiny, veering towards the realm of vanitas. In the present drawing, the figures are arranged like a cast on a stage set, with family members rigid in their individual grief, locked within their own interior happenings and unable to communicate with each other. In the centre, propped up against a pillow, sits the son in frail health. In an oil that the subsequently painted of the subject, Munch places greater focus on this central character, adding a glowing halo around the son’s face and removing several of the surrounding figures. With a greater population, in the present work we are faced with a much livelier scene, recalling Munch’s earlier oeuvre. In its subject matter, the recto recalls ‘Death in the Sickroom’ (1893), which, set in his childhood home, recalls the illness and death of the artist’s sister; Munch’s expressive handling of figure, furthermore, nods to the staring faces with which we are confronted in his iconic painting, ‘Evening on Karl Johan Street’ (1892).
The verso of the sheet depicts a small, wide-eyed girl, who, clasping her hands over her ears, demands the viewer’s attention with her intense and questioning gaze. Whilst her mouth is firmly shut, her large eyes transfix the onlooker, conveying to the viewer a story of silent desperation and tragic loss. The drawing is a preparatory study for ‘Death and the Child’, painted by Munch in 1899 and now in the Kunsthalle, Bremen, which depicts a young girl with similar features standing in front of her deceased mother, holding the same pose as that of the present sketch. A further comparison can be made with a different iteration of the subject painted in the same year and now in the Munch-Museet in Oslo. These renderings all share an emphasis on the enigmatic, psychological reaction of the central figure, rather than the main event taking place in the background – a trait typical throughout Munch’s artistic production. The tragedy concealed behind the wide eyes of the small girl is excruciating, almost palpable.
Having revisited this very subject in two paintings and several related etchings and sketches, it is clear that this scene must have been of particular significance for the artist. It takes its inspiration, in part, from Max Klinger’s highly wrought composition ‘Dead Mother’ (1889), and is connected to a crucial event from Munch’s biography: the death of the his own mother in 1868, when he was just 5 years old. Considering that the artist had three sisters, one can imagine that the motif of a small girl standing in front of her dead mother may have stemmed from his own personal memories: when working on this subject, Munch ‘moved away from anything symbolic or archetypal to a recollection molten with personal meaning’ (S. Prideaux, Edvard Munch. Behind the Scream, London, 2005, p. 211). After all, his beloved sister Sophie, who also died prematurely in 1877, may have reacted to the death of her mother in a similar manner as the child depicted in the present drawing.