Munch Biography Essay, Research Paper

Edvard Munch: A Biography

Edvard Munch is regarded as a pioneer in the Expressionist movement in modern painting. At an early stage Munch was recognized in Germany and central Europe as one of the creators of a new movement in art. Munch and many artists of the time needed to express their feelings about all the change that was happening around.

Edvard Munch was born in Norway in 1863; he knew how a person’s emotional pain feels. He was the son of an Army Medical Corp doctor who brought patients at home all the time. His mother died when he was only five years of age. His oldest sister died of disease at the age of fifteen. Edvard himself was often ill. One of his youngest sisters was also diagnosed with a mental illness at an early age. With death and illness as a major factor in his life he turned that into his own work.

After a year at Technical school to study engineering, Munch became dedicated to his artwork. He left Technical school and entered into a school of design.

Sometime in 1886 he produced the painting titled The Sick Child. In this painting his thoughts of the death of his older sister were let out and they were rather haunting. Around this same year Munch finished a series of paintings title The Sick Child. In this same year when all this occurred another catastrophe happened in Munch’s life, the death of his father.

After having a one-man exhibition at Oslo, he managed to gain state scholarships, which enabled him to move to France. He had a way with French Impressionist techniques and while living in Paris he explored a way of painting that would focus on the art symbolism and expressing of emotions through applications of paint and certain techniques.

Munch had a series of paintings that were exhibited in a major art show in Berlin. The series was entitled The Frieze of Life, all six of these paintings caused such shock that the show was forced to shut down. Munch had so much feelings, passions, anguish, stress, sorrow, and pain in his paintings that people just didn’t understand what was going on. He thought that people were just afraid of the truth. Munch had let his feelings out, not through rage or anger, but through art, some people that attended the show saw more than just art they saw one mans feelings. Munch’s painting began having a big part in German Expressionism.

Over the years Munch was considered to be in an expressionist group called Der Blaue Reiter, translated to English it means The Blue Riders. He also did a lot of traveling but mainly stayed near Norway, Germany and Paris.

In 1908, Munch suffered an anxiety attack and was hospitalized. He had a nervous breakdown and some say depression and heavy drinking brought it on. He recovered after several electroshock treatments. His art after that went through extreme changes. He lost all his feelings he had originally in his artwork and his art became more imagery than expression.

In 1915 he traveled to America. While in America he went to a show in San Francisco. He was given a medal for his graphics; also he exhibited ten pieces of work. He is so successful now he is able to give financial aid to other artists.

In 1917, a book was published titled, Edvard Munch. Over the next couple of years Munch traveled a lot. He spread his art everywhere. He had many exhibitions in several areas of the world.

Near the final years of his life he had many tragic deaths in his family that would affect him deeply. He also started to have eye trouble. In 1937, eighty-two pieces of his work was confiscated and sold for being branded as degenerate. He quieted down in the years of 1940-1944, he did continue to make prints and paintings.

He died on January 23, 1944. In 1963, a museum was opened to house all his great work. The museum is called The Munch-Museet.

Munch was an extremely powerful painter in that he was able to communicate his feelings and emotions of death and tragedy through his work, just the way he expressed himself through his artwork is what gave him the best qualities as an artist.