"Munch Transcended the Artistic Conventions of His Time and Began
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"Munch transcended the artistic conventions of his time and began to formulate ideas that would lay the groundwork for Expressionism in art." DRIPS, SCRATCHES, AND STROKES The New Language of Expressionism from Edvard Munch to Willem de Kooning SVETLANA TU ROVA WHETHER ON ODDLY-SHAPED PILLOWS, SHRIEKING DOLLS, OR BASIC COFFEE MUGS, THE EMACIATED P ROT AG ON I ST WITH GAPING MOUTH AND THE SWIRLING LANDSCAPE OF EDVARD MUNCH'S THE SCREAM IS ONE OF TODAY'S MOST WIDESPREAD IMAGES. THOUGH MUNCH DIED JUST AS ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM WAS BEING BORN, HIS EMPHASIS ON THE HIGHLY PERSONAL AND THE UNCONSCIOUS THROUGH ABSTRAC• TION, BRUSHWORK, AND INTENSELY EVOCATIVE COLORS LINK HIM CLOSELY TO THIS IMPORTANT AMERICAN ART MOVEMENT. THROUGH THE SPECIFIC COMPARISON OF THE OEUVRE OF MUNCH AND THE ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONIST WILLEM DE KOONING, THIS ESSAY WILL EXAMINE HOW AND WHY THE NORWEGIAN PA INTER BECAME KNOWN AS THE "FATHER OF EXPRESSIONISM" IN THE HISTORY OF ART. THE SCREAM IS NOT CENTRAL TO THIS DISCUSSION, BUT INSTEAD WILL BE LOOKED AT IN CONJUNCTION WITH OTHER EARLY PAINTINGS AND PRINTS, SUCH AS THE SICK CHILD AND THE KISS. THESE WORKS AND OTHERS REVEAL MUNCH'S ARTISTIC PHILOSOPHY AND TECHNIQUE AND ALLOW US TO DRAW BROADER CONNECTIONS TO FUTURE MOVEMENTS, NEO-DADAISM AND EXPRESSIONISM AMONG THEM. Norway, 1893: one of the most repeated, exploited, and rec- given to the following works by Munch: The Sick Child ognized images in the history of Western art is born.1 The (1885-6), The Scream (1893), and The Kiss (1898). In the Scream (figure 1) by Edvard Munch (1863-1944)11 is famil- process, surprising connections to the works of Arshile iar and identifiable today, yet, when first exhibited the Gorky and Jackson Pollock will be discussed. painting shocked most audiences, spurring harsh criticism from art critics and viewers alike. Munch had clearly defied Munch transcended the artistic conventions of his time and traditional views of painting. More than half a century later began to formulate ideas that would lay the groundwork for across the Atlantic, Dutch-born Abstract Expressionist Expressionism in art. Norwegian painters of the late nine- Willem de Kooning proclaimed, "Every so often a painter teenth century gravitated toward Naturalism, Realism, and has to destroy painting. Cezanne did it and then Picasso Impressionism, drawing inspiration from the external did it again with Cubism. Then Pollock did it—he busted world and relying on observation in their creation of art.v "Every so often a painter has to destroy painting. Cezanne did it and then Picasso did it again ... Then Pollock did it—he busted our idea of a picture all to hell. Then there could be new pictures again." our idea of a picture all to hell. Then there could be new Landscapes were especially popular. The landscape paint- pictures again."111 After a closer look at the Scandinavian ing might encompass Naturalist themes, but Munch would master's oeuvre, it is not only tempting but highly appropri- instead portray it as reflection of inner feeling and the soul. ate to squeeze Munch between Cezanne and Picasso in this Munch received formal education in the arts in Oslo list of "destroyers." De Kooning's word choice above is and even obtained several grants to study in France, the provocative, indeed; while "destruction" implies violence latter of which would forever alter his outlook on painting. and annihilation in most contexts, de Kooning applies it to In Modern Painting and the Northern Romantic Tradition, art, designating it a harbinger of renaissance, a sort of Robert Rosenblum comments on Munch's experiences tabula rasa for the artist, a chance to redefine the artistic vo- abroad: "Like Van Gogh, Munch changed drastically the cabulary and revolutionize painting. surface appearance of his painting by absorbing the newest artistic vocabularies that he could study during his Edvard Munch's "proto-expressionist formal frequent sojourns in France," adding that, like Van Gogh, vocabulary"iv—his exploitation of line, color, and form to "Munch could almost always mold this foreign vocabulary convey subjectivity—and his enlistment of the uncon- to his own emotional needs."V! Indeed, the thirst to express scious in the artistic process foreshadowed major his moods and emotions became Munch's dominating twentieth-century artistic movements, such as Surrealism motivation. and Abstract Expressionism. This essay will relate Munch's work method, technique, and themes to those of de The Munch household was one of repressed anguish; in Kooning in order to examine Munch's broader relationship fact, Edvard Munch commented about his childhood, "I to Abstract Expressionism. Particular attention will be was born dying."Vii Both Munch's mother and sister died of FIGURE 1. EDVARD MUNCH, THE SCREAM (1893). tuberculosis within a decade of one another. Munch suf- St. Cloud Manifesto: "No longer would interiors, people fered from bouts of life-threatening bronchitis at a young who only read and knit, be painted. There should rather be age. The patriarch of the family Dr. Christian Munch, fell living people breathing and feeling, suffering and loving. I into severe depression as a result of his helplessness in the felt I have to do this. It would be so simple. The flesh would face of the disease and, being a Christian fundamentalist, take on form and the colours come to life."x This vision re- attributed the illness as a form of punishment from God. jects the goal of the Naturalists and the Impressionists to These experiences would doubtless haunt Edvard Munch paint objectively, that is, directly from nature. Instead of for the rest of his life and career. Hence, while in France, painting what he sees, the artist should paint what he saw Munch became extremely receptive to experimental artistic in that specific moment, allowing it to be molded by his forms and methods, most likely searching for a way to mind and soul. "It is true that a chair can be just as inter- exorcise the traumatizing memories of his childhood. esting as a man," Munch explained, "but the chair must be seen by a man. In one way or another, he must have had an Regardless of the true reason for Munch's attraction to emotional reaction to it and the painter must cause the works by Van Gogh and Gauguin, it is evident that Munch viewer to react in the same way."xl The external is subordi- began to reform his artistic philosophy and to develop nated to the internal, and the internal, in turn, is projected Expressionist aesthetic vocabulary and ideas. In onto nature. His insistence that the audience be moved by Expressionism: Art and Idea, Donald Gordon outlines the the picture suggests that his "subjective psychological expe- "ground rules" of Expressionism as dictated in 1937 by The riences" can be raised to the level of "universal statements Ten, one of the first publicly recognized Expressionist art analyzing the soul of modern man."xli groups in the United States: In his oeuvre, Munch aspired to express the first impression 1. The attempt to reduce the interpretation of nature or moment of an experience. One of Munch's intellectual or life in general to the rawest emotional elements. companions, Swedish playwright, sculptor, and painter August Strindberg, may have encouraged Munch to pursue 2. A complete and utter dependence on pigment as an this agenda more fervently. In his essay, "The New Arts, or expressive agency rather than an imitative or descrip- the Role of Chance in Artistic Creation" from 1894, he tive one. wrote: 3. An intensity of vision which tries to catch the throb of life, necessarily doing violence to external facts to Now freed from the trouble of finding the right colours, the lay bare internal facts.viii soul of the painter enjoys the freedom to elicit shapes, and as his hand manipulates the spatula at random, still retaining Gordon adds that Expressionism was first and foremost a nature's model in mind without seeking to copy it, the result familial revolution because "it was a protest by adolescents reveals itself as a charming combination of the conscious against [the] ignorance, intolerance, and materialism of and the unconscious.xm their parents and teachers."1X He cites Munch, who came from a conservative background, as a prime example of The juxtaposition of the words "manipulates" and "at ran- those liberated by Expressionist art and culture. dom" is peculiar because it foreshadows the remarkable paradox so apparent in paintings by the best known How did Munch then relate to the Expressionist ideals enu- Abstract Expressionist, Jackson Pollock. The idea of "ran- merated above? On New Year's Eve in the year 1889, domness" is more complicated than it seems and rather Munch articulated his artistic aspirations in the so-called difficult to achieve. While the artist relinquishes control, allowing his conscience, not his intellect, to guide him, he tion, and the sensations conjured up by this reflection still manages to "manipulate" or control the composition of cause him to manipulate the medium, thereby distorting the piece. The "alloverness"—the fact that the viewer's eye the features of nature, until he has fully conveyed what the travels all over the painting without settling on any single original psychological experience inspired in him. Nearly focal point, a term coined by art critic Clement ten years after the death of his sister Sophie, Munch Greenberg—of Pollock's larger paintings and the seem- painted The Sick Child (figure 2), a clear departure point for ingly spontaneous curves and sinews of the poured paint, his mature works. He was continually disturbed by the to which the mainstream audience often responds, memory of her suffering, perhaps by the horrific image of "Anyone could do that!" illustrates the contradiction.