Edvard Munch (Munch Edward)

(1863-1944)
Born Letenye in southern Norway on Dec. 12, 1863, grew up in Oslo (Christiania). His father, a military doctor, was a deeply religious man. When the future artist was still a child, his mother and elder sister died of tuberculosis. Illness, suffering, death - themes to which Munch constantly returned to throughout his career - were familiar to him from early childhood.
At the age of 17 years, Munch enrolled at the Royal School of Drawing, two years of study he was involved in artistic and literary circles of Christiania, which shocked the society explicit images of the life of bohemians. Subjects, drawn by the artist in this medium, and later appeared in his series of life Fries. According to the author, each painting in this series was to depict the helplessness of man before the indifferent forces of life, love and death.

In 1889 Munch moved to Paris, where he met with the new directions in painting - the emerging post-impressionism and modernism. In 1892 the artist participated in a big exhibition in Berlin, but his paintings were met with hostility. In Germany, Munch mastered the techniques of etching, in Paris, experimented with lithography, and woodcut, which is widely used characteristic of Gauguin's reception underscores the texture of wood. In the engraving and lithography Munch embodied the same plots as in painting, but with much more energy, strength and originality. His engravings - perhaps the highest achievement of the master.

The theme has become central in the work of Munch, - relations between men and women. Woman in his work appears in various manifestations: as an idealized image of the girl as the personification of erotic femininity or as a clairvoyant, domineering mother's death.

In 1908, having reached a wide fame and popularity in Norway, Munch suffered severe emotional distress caused by alcoholism and bitter quarrels with friends. After spending eight months in a sanatorium near Copenhagen, he returned to Norway and settled in a suburb of Oslo. Sale of prints and large orders for monumental decoration of public buildings provided a stable income Munch. He continued to paint on themes developed in his youth, and a more tranquil landscapes until his death on Jan. 23, 1944 in Enem, near Oslo.