Edvard Munch (1863-1944) was a Norwegian expressionist artist. Munch was born in Loten in Norway in 1863. He lost his mother and sister at a young age. The prominent themes of his paintings revolve around love angst and death. These themes also seem to mirror the themes of his own life. Munch’s childhood saw traumatic experiences caused by illness, bereavement, and a traumatic mental condition that ran in the family.

‘The Scream’

Edvard Munch painted this famous painting in 1893. His expressionist painting ‘Scream’ became an iconic painting in art history. Experts rate this painting among the greatest paintings of Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’, Picasso’s ‘Guernica’, da Vinci’s ‘Mona Lisa’. The painting was stolen from a museum in Oslo and was recovered three months later in 1994. The painting symbolizes the anxiety of the human condition. The painting is presently on display in the National Museum in Oslo. It has come to light that Munch himself had written on the painting saying that ‘Can only have been painted by a madman’. Munch has also narrated the events leading to his decision to paint this famous work ‘Scream’. He recalled that when he had set out for a walk at sunset, he suddenly saw the setting sun turning the clouds a blood red and the colour shrieked. He then felt an infinite scream passing through nature. It might have also been Munch’s instinctive reaction to his sister’s commitment to a lunatic asylum.

‘Love and Pain’ or ‘Vampaire’

Munch painted his work ‘Love and Pain’ in 1895 and this painting subsequently became known as ‘Vampire’. The painting depicts a man and a woman embracing and the woman was either kissing the man or she was biting him on his neck. The red hair of the woman runs along the bare skin of the male member. Munch painted six different versions of this painting during the period between 1893 and 1895. Art experts also say that there are other derivative versions of the painting which he made subsequently.

Art historians say that Munch himself claimed the portrayal of the woman in the painting was meant to show her as kissing the male partner. However, it was one of Munch’s friends who, after seeing the painting in an exhibition, described that the man was submissive and the woman in red hair was aggressive. An 1894 version of the painting sold for 38.2 million dollars and it was a record auction price for the Munch painting.

His Famous Paintings

Edvard Munch’s most famous paintings include ‘Scream’, ‘Death in the Sick Room’. His series of paintings featuring his most remarkable subjects ‘The Frieze of Life’ and ‘The Dance of Life’.