Edvard Muunch, Behind the Scream, Sue Prideaux, c. 2005.

Edvard Muunch, Behind the Scream, Sue Prideaux, c. 2005. BMUN.

Foreword.

At age 28, Munch said he was embarking on a lifelong effort to paint his "soul's diary."

Munch: a big reader. Books played a large part in influencing his thought and his pictures.

Literature, philosophy, music, medicine and an emerging art, psychiatry.

Dating of his paintings / work -- a huge problem. He would let an unfinished work hang around for a very, very long time, and not dating it until it was finished.

Little is known about the paints that Munch used.

His most experimental period was in the 1890s and that is probably the only period when hee explored paint recipes together with Strindberg and Schleich.

The surface (i.e., canvas) was much more important than the paint. The canvas affected everything.

The four coloured versions of The Scream are all on cardboard.

Used all media at once: no rule for Munch that an oil painting exclusively that -- just an oil painting. In one oil painting he might use a combination -- literally a mixture -- of oil, chalk, pastel, charcoal, crayon, pencil and/or a brush loaded with casein paint at random.

Chapter One
Shy Souls: 1963 and Before

Born, December 12, 1863. Christening on April 15, 1864, four months old.

Engelhaug farmhouse in Løten, 170 km north of Oslo.

The family rented three small rooms in the house.

His father was an Army physician attached to the Østerdalske Jaegercorps stationed there.

Parents were Christian, 46, and Laura, 23.

They married when Christian was 44, shortly after he arrived in Løten.

Understanding his father, Christian, is the key to understanding Edvard.

Edvard wrote: I inherited the seeds of my madness from my father...." Edvard describes his "whole youth" as "worm-eaten" by his father's religious anxiety, using the same word -- an unusual one -- that Ibsen puts into Osvald's mouth in Ghosts referring to the syphilis he (I assume Osvald, not Christian/Edvard) has inherited from is father. 

The Munchs were aristocratic, proud of their prominence as churchmen and intellectuals down the nation's life.

Christian: brother of the most successful priest of his generation and the brother of the most brilliant scholar and nationalist, P. A. Munch, known as "the father of Norwegian history"; his statue stands ouutside Oslo Univrsity to this day, one of only two. 

Christian: university in 1834.

History of Norway as Danish (1380 - 1814) and a vassal of Sweden, later.

Norway maintained / retained its linguistic / literary union with Denmark even as a vassal of Sweden. As a vassal of Sweden, the country was deprived of widespread literacy, let alone literature. The Norwegian language was not even a written language, but an oral tradition that varied in words and pronunciation from district to district. Sweden completely dominated Norway; becasue of that nationalism ran high during that period.

Academy of Arts: under Sweden, Norway was not allowed its own Academy, but Johan Storm Munch succeeded in founding the National Gallery in 1836. An earlier member of the Munch family, Jacob Munch, pupil of Jacques-Louis David, brought neo-classical portraiture to his native land.

The story of Christian as a physician, in the "Swedish" army.

Met Laura, married.

Married in Frederiskstad, father's home, 120 km south of Oslo. That was a long trip, considering Løten was 170 km north of Oslo.

Chapter Two
Never More To Be Parted: 1864 - 1868

1864. The Munchs had been transferred to Kristiania on Christian's promotion. The family doing well.

Earlier: 1847: Edvard's paternal grandfather died of spinal TB and was insane at the end of his life (common with spinal / cerebral TB). But Edvard believed (wrongly) that the insanity was due to syphilis that his grandfather had picked up on a visit to Copenhagen. There was indeed insanity in the family, but this mistaken belief about his grandfather contributed disproportionately towards Edvard's lifelong conviction that insanity was to be his own inescapable fate.

Mother Laura died sometime between Christmas 1886 and New Year. Cholera, local epidemic, I believe.

Chapter Three
Growing Up In Kristiania: 1869 - 1875

Chapter Four
The Blood-Red Banner: 1876 - 1877

Sister Sophie, who was the first child, born 1862, born the year before Edvard, dies of TB at age 15.

Age 15; Edvard was very, very close to Sophie.

Chapter Five
Losing Faith: 1878 - 1881

 

....

 

 

Chapter Fourteen
God Is Dead, Berlin: 1892 - 1894

The Scream is dated 1893.

This will be the chapter we first learn about the scream. It is his "insanity."

This is all I have time for now.