Inger on the beach

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Inger on the beach (Edvard Munch)
Inger on the beach
Edvard Munch , 1889
Oil on canvas
126 × 161 cm
Art Museum, Bergen

Inger am Strand (also summer night ; Norwegian: Inger på stranden , Sommernatt ) is a painting by the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch . It was created in Åsgårdstrand in the summer of 1889 . The woman portrayed is Munch's youngest sister Inger.

Image description

A young woman, identified by the picture title as Munch's youngest sister Inger, is sitting in a calm pose, a straw hat in her hands, on a large granite rock and has her head in profile. Her bright white dress contrasts with the green, mossy stones and the blue-red water of the sea behind her, the color of which, according to the alternative title , comes from the Nordic summer nights . Only a few fish traps and a fishing boat behind her reveal human life in the natural landscape.

interpretation

According to Matthias Arnold, Munch has always been particularly interested in portraiture since his artistic beginnings . In addition to numerous self-portraits and pictures by artist friends, it was also his family members in particular that he repeatedly portrayed in the early days, see also the list of paintings by Edvard Munch . Munch had a particularly close relationship with his youngest sister Inger Marie. While most of the other siblings died early, Inger was the only one in the family who survived her brother Edvard. Munch painted it several times, for example in 1882 in a naturalistic en-face bust , in 1984 in a half-figure in a confirmation dress and in 1892 in a full-figure picture, which according to Matthias Arnold is one of his most important portraits. Munch named the picture, based on Whistler's harmony in black and purple . Today it is known as the portrait of Inger Munch .

While Ulrich Bischoff sees the portrait of the then 14-year-old Inger in a black confirmation dress, made in 1884, as an early work in the tradition of portrait painting of the 19th century, the summer night (Inger on the beach) , created five years later, already indicates the future importance of the artist ahead. From the compositional structure in horizontal and vertical axes to the themes of loneliness, melancholy and fear of life known from the later frieze to the transformation of a momentary scene into a memory-fed symbol of human existence, Bischoff can already see the entire artistic repertoire of the The painter.

For Reinhold Heller, Inger's motif on the beach is less a time of day than a mood. The contours and planar representations of figures and stones, the non-existent horizon between sky and sea and the almost monochrome blue are reminiscent of decorative art . Anni Carlsson speaks of a "landscape of essence" in which the mood includes beach, sea and figure and abolishes the boundaries in space. In a later statement, Munch compared stones protruding from the sea with living beings, goblins and sea spirits: "In the bright nights the shapes have fantastic tones." Nic. Stang recalls the “simplification of form and color, which sets one colored form against the other” of Paul Gauguin , a painter whom Munch only got to know on his trip to Paris that same year.

Tore Skedsmo still sees Inger on the beach in the tradition of the naturalistic painters of the “Fleksum Colony”, namely Christian Skredsvig , Eilif Peterssen , Erik Werenskiold , Gerhard Munthe , Kitty Kielland and Harriet Becker , who were known for their calm summer night moods. For Skedsmo, the composition of a figure in a landscape and the elegiac mood of the picture point to Munch's Norwegian colleagues, but Munch already added elements of modernity to them with his simplification of forms and the echo of a mood in nature. He also shows influences from Puvis de Chavannes and Jules Bastien-Lepage , whom he got to know at the world exhibition in Antwerp in 1885 , for example in Inger's rigid expression with her empty gaze and the dry application of paint.

Work history

Edvard and Inger Munch, date unknown

In the summer of 1889 Munch rented a small house by the sea in Åsgårdstrand , a small Norwegian coastal town on the Oslofjord , which served as a summer retreat for many citizens and artists from nearby Kristiania, today's Oslo . Among them were Christian Krohg and Frits Thaulow, who were friends with Munch . The place was to acquire great significance in Munch's life. He not only spent numerous summers here and bought a house in 1897, there were also many important pictures of his so-called frieze of life on site . In the first year of 1889 he portrayed his youngest sister Inger, who had previously been his model several times, in the picture Inger on the beach . This was preceded by a series of studies that Munch had made outdoors between 9 and 11 o'clock in the evening to study the lighting conditions on a Norwegian summer night.

Only a few months later, the picture was shown for the first time under the title Evening at the annual autumn exhibition in Kristiania, while Munch had already traveled on to Paris to collect impressions of the local art scene, through which he would finally find his symbolist - expressive style . Its reception in contemporary critics was downright hostile. Morgenbladet called the painting the pure " Galimathias " and spoke of the audience being made a fool of. Other voices complained about "easily thrown stones that seem to be made of soft, shapeless material".

Aftenposten described the seated figure as “a corporeal being with no trace of life and expression, just as untrue in form as in color […] On the whole, this picture seems to us to be of so little artistic value that its presence at the exhibition is difficult to defend ”. Dagbladet at least pointed out: “If you want to understand him, you have to keep in mind that Munch is a poet - a person who can be completely seized by a mood, devoted to it and its reproduction, regardless of conventional laws and shapes, often with a tendency to the imagination. "

At least the picture found an advocate: Munch's Norwegian colleague Erik Werenskiold bought it directly at the exhibition. In 1909, the Norwegian art collector Rasmus Meyer acquired the painting as part of his collection in Bergen, which was made public in 1924 .

literature

  • Ulrich Bischoff : Edvard Munch . Taschen, Cologne 1988, ISBN 3-8228-0240-9 , pp. 17-18.
  • Anni Carlsson: Edvard Munch. Life and work . Belser, Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-7630-1936-7 , pp. 33-34.
  • Reinhold Heller: Edvard Munch. Life and work . Prestel, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-7913-1301-0 , p. 38.
  • Tone Skedsmo: Summer Night (Inger on the Beach) , 1889. In: Edvard Munch . Museum Folkwang, Essen 1988, without ISBN, cat. 17.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ulrich Bischoff: Edvard Munch . Taschen, Cologne 1988, ISBN 3-8228-0240-9 , p. 17.
  2. ^ A b Matthias Arnold: Edvard Munch. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1986. ISBN 3-499-50351-4 , p. 79.
  3. ^ Hans Dieter Huber : Edvard Munch. Dance of life . Reclam, Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 978-3-15-010937-3 , p. 7.
  4. ↑ Cf. Edvard Munch: Inger i Svart in the National Museum Oslo .
  5. ^ Ulrich Bischoff: Edvard Munch . Taschen, Cologne 1988, ISBN 3-8228-0240-9 , pp. 17-18.
  6. ↑ a b Reinhold Heller: Edvard Munch. Life and work . Prestel, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-7913-1301-0 , p. 38.
  7. ^ A b Anni Carlsson: Edvard Munch. Life and work . Belser, Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-7630-1936-7 , p. 33.
  8. ↑ a b Nic. Stang: Edvard Munch . Ebeling, Wiesbaden 1981, ISBN 3-921452-14-7 , p. 33.
  9. ^ A b c Tone Skedsmo: Summer Night (Inger am Strand) , 1889. In: Edvard Munch . Museum Folkwang, Essen 1988, without ISBN, cat. 17.
  10. ↑ a b Ulrich Bischoff: Edvard Munch . Taschen, Cologne 1988, ISBN 3-8228-0240-9 , p. 18.
  11. ^ Anni Carlsson: Edvard Munch. Life and work . Belser, Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-7630-1936-7 , p. 34.