MM UT 30. The Scream

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“Mademoiselle” no. 10

    I stopped and leaned against
the balustrade, almost dead with
fatigue. Over the blue-black fjord
hung clouds, red as blood—as
tongues of flame. My friends
passed on, and alone, trembling
with anguish, I listened to the
great, infinte cry of nature.

“Mademoiselle” no. 10

Munch, the
Norse artist

    Edvard Munch , who have studied both in Munich and Paris, is known fairly
well on the continent, but so far as I know there is only one of his works—a
sketch in coloured chalks—in this country. In his native land he has never been
appreciated. The journals of Kristiania  assert that he offends public morality.
His pictures are refused admittance to the galleries. I have seen many of his
pictures, it is true, which should not be shown to young girls. It would be a trifle
absurd, however, to confine art within the limit of the young person's imagination.

    If you can imagine Rowlandson blended with Puvis de Chavannes in equal
proportions you will have a fair idea of Edvard Munch. His art is at once
spermatozoidal and spiritual. He pictures violent, dishevelled lovers astray in
black forests—creatures primeval in the ferocity of their passion; he pictures
death and the horrors of the tomb—all this with immense force and urgency.

    I have redrawn from a woodcut in “La Revue Blanche” this whimsical
black-and-white, which is typical of Edvard Munch only in his whimsical mood.
The painter himself has put into words his interpretation of the drawing.