The Norwegian Edvard Munch (1863–1944) is best known for ‘The Scream’, that unforgettable image of the tortured self in the grip of alienation, loss and fear. Munch is the great Symbolist and precursor of Expressionism, the artist as poetic visionary who valued imagination over knowledge, and the urge to self-expression beyond the need to enlighten or inform. He takes us into a twilight existence of gloom and psychosis. In a God-less universe, man was left to his own devices, and it’s not a pretty sight. Munch was manically overproductive, and on his death left more than 20,000 works to the city of Oslo, which took 20 years to establish the Munch Museet to house it all. From this vast collection the current exhibition of some 150 self-portraits has mostly been drawn — 150 self-portraits? I hear you gasp. Afraid so. Munch didn’t do things by halves.
An outsider by temperament, he is a classic case of the artist as victim, staggering from one emotional crisis to the next, relishing his pain.
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