Edvard Munch

Catalog description

The Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (1863-1944) continues to generate a great deal of popular interest, critical scholarship, and reflection. The 4-volume catalogue raisonné of his paintings was published in 2009, and the graphic work appeared in 2001. A painter, printmaker, photographer, and filmmaker, Munch was also a prolific writer, well acquainted with the symbolist poets and playwrights, as well as the broad intellectual drift of the fin-de-siècle. He is the one Scandinavian artist included within the Modernist canon and his image, The Scream (1893), is an icon of the modern age. Munch traveled widely throughout Europe and his work was exhibited in North America beginning with the famous 1913 Armory Show. In this course students will examine recent scholarship devoted to Munch and the critical issues that his work addresses. It will also place him within the broader cultural context of Scandinavian and European modernism, while examining his impact on subsequent generations.