The kiss (Munch)

The kiss
	Edvard Munch , 1902
	Woodcut
	46 × 41 cm
	Oslo National Museum , Oslo

The kiss
	Edvard Munch , 1897
	Oil on canvas
	99 × 81 cm
	Munch Museum Oslo , Oslo

The kiss , or kiss for short, is the name of several paintings by the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch from the years 1892 to 1906. The motif of the kiss appeared in Munch's earlier works since 1888: a couple kissing, their faces merging into one. It is part of his life frieze , which deals with life, especially the relationship between man and woman. The most famous painting in the series from 1897 was first exhibited in 1903 and is currently in the Munch Museum in Oslo, as well as a woodcut in the Oslo National Museum .

description

The kiss exists as an oil painting on canvas (81 × 99 cm) and as a woodcut (41 × 46 cm). It shows a man and a woman who are hugging and kissing intertwined. Their faces cannot be separated from one another, but rather blur into one another. The couple is standing in a darkened room in front of a window with the curtains drawn. A little light penetrates through a corner of the window that is not completely covered. According to art critic Roberta Smith , Munch used "long, somewhat slurpy brush strokes that were more stained than painted".

background

Munch experimented with the motif of a couple kissing in his oil paintings as well as in woodblock prints. In numerous versions of the motif there is a contrast between the world outside the room and the interior. The outside world is always presented as pulsating and lively, while the interior is timeless, and the couple appear frozen in their embrace. The couple's fused faces indicate their togetherness.

The picture resembles his earlier works Kuss am Fenster (1891 and 1892) and the work from 1892, also called The Kiss. In these works, the faces are still separated from one another. In later versions of the motif, however, not only the faces but also the bodies of the two are fused.

Kiss at the Window , 1891
Oil on canvas,
72 × 64.5 cm,
Munch Museum
Kiss at the Window , 1892
Oil on canvas, National Gallery, Oslo
The Kiss , 1892
Oil on canvas,
72 × 59 cm

The Norwegian symbolist Edvard Munch (1863-1944) had to contend with his illness, a mental disorder, the death of a family member and his strict and strongly religious father. Disappointment in love and poor health led him to melancholy and alcoholism . Munch never married. This influenced his artistic work and the emotionality of his paintings. According to Smith, the people in Munch's works are mostly "not mad, but paralyzed by oceanic feelings of grief, jealousy, desire or despair that many people found shocking either for their eroticism, crude style or intimations of mental instability". His works are shocking, but at the same time characterized by an emotional honesty and integrity that make them exciting.

interpretation

According to the Museum of Modern Art , the image's dark surroundings are representative of Munch's ambivalence towards romanticism. The art historian Reinhold Heller describes the merged portrayal of the couple on the one hand as a symbol of their unity, but on the other hand sees in it the loss of individuality as well as their own existence and identity, which for him refers to death.

Night at Saint-Cloud , 1890

The author Stanisław Przybyszewski (1868–1927), however, described the fused faces as “look [ing] like a gigantic ear… deaf in the ecstasy of the blood”. August Strindberg (1849–1912) made a similar statement in which he described the merger as “a fusion of two beings, of which the smaller, in the form of a carp, seems ready to devour the larger”. The room in the kiss bears a certain resemblance to Munch's own room as depicted in Saint-Cloud at Night . According to the critic Ulrich Bischoff , the painting therefore also has an autobiographical element.

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d Edvard Munch. The Kiss. 1897. Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved July 25, 2015 .
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d Roberta Smith: So Typecast You Could Scream. In: The New York Times. February 12, 2009, p. C27 , archived from the original on July 26, 2015 ; Retrieved July 25, 2015 .
↑ ^a ^b Ulrich Bischoff: Edvard Munch: 1863-1944 . Taschen, 2000, ISBN 978-3-8228-5971-1 , pp. 39 .
^ Joel Henning: Not All His Inspirations Were Creepy. In: The Wall Street Journal. February 25, 2009, archived from the original on July 26, 2015 ; Retrieved July 25, 2015 .
^ Edvard Munch Master Prints. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2010, archived from the original on July 26, 2015 ; Retrieved July 25, 2015 .
↑ ^a ^b Shelley Wood Cordulack: Edvard Munch and the Physiology of Symbolism . Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, 2002, ISBN 978-0-8386-3891-0 .

[MoMa-1] Edvard Munch. The Kiss. 1897. Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved July 25, 2015 .

[smith-2] Roberta Smith: So Typecast You Could Scream. In: The New York Times. February 12, 2009, p. C27 , archived from the original on July 26, 2015 ; Retrieved July 25, 2015 .

[Bischoff-3] Ulrich Bischoff: Edvard Munch: 1863-1944 . Taschen, 2000, ISBN 978-3-8228-5971-1 , pp. 39 .

[4] Joel Henning: Not All His Inspirations Were Creepy. In: The Wall Street Journal. February 25, 2009, archived from the original on July 26, 2015 ; Retrieved July 25, 2015 .

[5] Edvard Munch Master Prints. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2010, archived from the original on July 26, 2015 ; Retrieved July 25, 2015 .

[Cordulack-6] Shelley Wood Cordulack: Edvard Munch and the Physiology of Symbolism . Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, 2002, ISBN 978-0-8386-3891-0 .