The Art Institute of Chicago hosted an Edvard Munch Exhibition from Feb.14 and April 24 of this year.
They had the challenge of questioning the myths surroundering this one of the greatest influences in Expressionalism. Although Munch is famous for all his neurotic paintings, also his behaviour lead by his clear mind is underlined in the exhibition. He is smart, although driven mostly by his heavy hearted sentimentals, he has a commercial mind. The critics finding his work "shocking" never dared to buy them although they did not restrain themselves from going into his exhibitions either. Knowing this, Munch's commercial mind guided him to charge an entry fee for his exhibitions. Not an act you would expect from an artist totally living in his own depressed world.
He works with Femme Fatal figures, popular theme of 1900s, the woman who binds the men to herself and lets them suffer. Use of hair as the binding element of the Femme Fatal to her man are apparent.
Madonna, 1895,one of the Femme Fatals of Munch, is seen above.
He is also inspired by the impressionists such as Monet, Van Gogh, Gaugin. The existence of the window in all of their works is a common element, which helps them in using the light in the scenery. Munch likes to use similar colors with Van Gogh.
It is also suprising to see that he has bright colored works where he paints vivid nature scenes. The exhibition tries to draw a more complete picture of Munch with all aspects of his mind and links to the artists of his time. It is interesting to see once again how media can effect the face of an artist to promote his charateristic in a more interesting way the viewers would like to see. The critics and media was succesful in doing this in the first half of the 20th century and it is no suprise that not much has changed today in that media shapes what we see in many areas, including art.
Currently university of Glasgow has loaned prints of Edvard Munch which will be displayed until September 5th. Works of the artist can be discovered at the Munch Museum Oslo at all times.
