14 October, 2005

Anxious Edvard


During my lunch break today I wandered down to the Royal Academy to take a gander at "Edvard Munch By Himself", an exhibition mostly of his self portraits.

Now, I obviously knew a few of his pieces (I mean, who doesn't know "The Scream") and didn't know what to expect above those really.

So it was a really pleasant surprise to be completely and utterly blown away. Most compelling were the pieces around his relationship with various woman (the most significant, in my opinion, being Tulla Larsen - it was so evident he ended up hating her!)

There was much discussion through the course of the exhibition about Munch's madness, but I'm not sure I think he was mad. (what is the definition of mad, anyway?) I think he was just incredibly anxious and lonely - and through the mass of self portraits he painted he was just trying to find out who Edvard Munch was.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Nick Stephenson said...

Yay, more spam!

You should invite me along for your cultural lunches. I spent a lunch hour (or so) in the British Museum last week.

Today I spent it in the pub. Wonderful Cab Sav from Chile!

ziggystardust73 said...

or perhaps you should invite me along for your pub lunches!

cab sav.... mmmm. roll on 5pm.

WestVillageKid said...

Sounds like an interesting exhibition, and Munch totally sounds like my kinda guy!

Nunzia said...

I love Munch too... now I'm going to have to hunt for some of his other paintings. Sadly, The Scream is the only one of his I have adorning my walls!

ziggystardust73 said...

If you like Munch, check out Lucian Freud - I'm sure he was influenced by Munch... and his work is equally as disturbing.