The Cultural Roots of Edvard Munch's Images of Women Author(S): Kristie Jayne Source: Woman's Art Journal, Vol

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The Cultural Roots of Edvard Munch's Images of Women Author(s): Kristie Jayne Source: Woman's Art Journal, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Spring - Summer, 1989), pp. 28-34 Published by: Woman's Art Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1358127 . Accessed: 21/10/2014 13:41

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This content downloaded from 209.129.16.124 on Tue, 21 Oct 2014 13:41:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions issues and insights The CulturalRoots of Edvard Munch's Imagesof Women

KRISTIEJAYNE

Arthistorical examinations of Edvard Munch's (1863-1944) anotheras ifin pain.The smileof a corpse.Thus now life images ofwomen have generallyfocused on aspects ofthe reachesout its hand to death. The chain is forgedthat binds the artist's biography-particularly his relationships with thousandsof generationsthat have died to the thousandsof to come.3 women-to explain the preponderanceof sexuality and generations fertilitythemes. While it is correctto considersuch bio- Sexuality,fertility, and death are linkedtogether in a con- graphicalinformation, in Munch'scase it has been overem- stellation throughwhich female identityis constructed. phasized at the expense of social and cultural factors. Munch'sbelief that woman'sprocreative powers are a fun- Indeed, the increasinglyrestrictive social and economic damentalaspect ofher sexualityis made clear bythe pres- climate of late-19th-centuryEurope, along withscientific ence ofthe spermatozoaand fetusesin the now-lostframe theories such as Monism and Darwinism,which sought of the paintingand in the borderof the lithograph(1895; naturalistic,materialistic explanations for woman's "pro- Fig. 2) ofthe same imageand therelated drypoint (1894).4 creativeduties," may have exertedan importantinfluence In both The Three Stages of Woman(1893-95; Fig. 3) on Munch'sart as well. and The Dance ofLife (1899-1900; Fig. 4), woman'ssexual Aside fromthe portraits,most of Munch's depictions of cycle is charted similarly.Figures in white on the left womenrepresent some aspect offemale sexuality.1 In one denotethe firststage, virginity, followed by sexually-active ofhis mostfamous paintings, Puberty (1894; National Gal- womenin the center.In The ThreeStages of Woman,the lery,Oslo), a naked adolescent girl sits on the edge of a centralfigure is nude,with arms raised and drawnbehind bed staringnervously and fixedlyat the viewer.Her arms her head and back arched. Echoing the posture of the are crossedin frontof her genital area, as ifto protectand womanin Madonna, she invitessexual interaction.In The block it fromview, but in realityshe is calling attention Dance ofLife, the temptressis the red-cladfigure dancing to the image's centraltheme: emerging female sexuality. closelywith a man--a metaphorfor lovemaking. The sen- The bed, and especially the large, insistentlyphallic suous flowof Munch's line intimatelyconnects the couple. shadowshe casts on the wall to herleft reinforce the paint- Several othercouples are similarlyintertwined. The sad- ing'sprimary message. In The Voice(1893; Fig. 1), a young facedblack-clad women at near rightin ThreeStages and woman poses in frontof a stand of treesthrough which a farright in Dance representthe final stage of the female large bodyof water is visible.Like manyof Munch's images sexual cycle,in whichwoman is divestedof sexual allure. ofwomen, the staticpose, the generalizedtreatment of the In both paintings women are seen in relationshipto face and hair, and the lack of detail elsewhere suggest men. In The Dance of Life, the two unattachedwomen, womanas a symbol.With her white dress, innocent expres- conspicuouslysingle, focus on the centralcouple. The older sion, and eager yet vulnerable stance, she becomes a woman is tight and tense with sad regret;the younger woman on the brinkof sexual awareness,a message that moves with smiling anticipation.The lone man in The seems confirmedby the pronouncedphallic shape of the Three Stages of Womanis almost hidden in the darkness moon'sreflection on the waterin the centerof the painting of the foreston the far right.Separated fromthe women and by the couple boatingin the rightdistance. Her rigid, bya treetrunk, he also looksaway from them. He is whole, frontalpose, paralleling as it does the tall, straighttrees indivisible,a completesexual being. and the elongatedreflection of the moon,imbed her in the The specificreferences to procreationfobund in the sev- natural setting and thus emphasize her "natural" role: eral versionsof Madonna are absentfrom The ThreeStages that of fertilesexual partner. of Womanand The Dance ofLife. However, like otherSym- Madonna (1894-95), an oil on canvas at the National bolistartists who werepreoccupied with images offemale Gallery, Oslo, depicts a woman seductivelyposed, or sexuality and fertility,Munch incorporatedimages of perhaps actually engaged in the sexual act: her arms are nature's(and women's)fecundity in bothpaintings-lush, upraised,her hips shiftto one side, and her eyesare closed verdantgrass, thick,dark forests,and the sea, universal in expressivereverie. Her frontalposition forces the partici- symbolof nature's ceaseless repetitionand predictability, pation of the viewer:the voyeurbecomes sexual partner.2 representingthe unchangingcyclical process of procrea- Munch wroteof this image: tion. In The Dance ofLife he repeatsthe moon'selongated The pause as all the worldstops in its path.Moonlight reflectionin thewater as seen earlierin The Voice.Certain glidesover your face filled with all theearth's beauty and stylisticdevices also underscorethe organicbasis offemale pain.Your lips are like two ruby-red serpents, and are filled life.In both works,the horizonlines are so high that the withblood, like your crimson red fruit. They glide from one women'ssilhouetted bodies appear almostimbedded in the

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Fig. 1. Edvard Munch,The Voice (1893), oil on canvas, 341/2"x 421/2".Museum of Fine Arts,Boston. i green earth and the sea. Moreover,in both compositions, . curvilinearlines weave the and natural 'i sinuous, figures elementstogether in a connective,rhythmical harmony. iii : "*ii 'i- From Munch'sbiography, it is easy to understandwhy ...... ,.. so many art historiansbelieve his obsessionswith sexual- _:-...... ityand fertilitywere the resultof his problematicrelation- ships with women.His motherand sisterdied duringhis childhood.One of his earliest romanticinvolvements was with an older marriedwoman. In the early 1890s he was deeply attracted to a music student, Norwegian Dagny 2. Edvard Madonna hand-colored Juell, the only-and much admired-female memberof Fig. Munch, (1895), lithograph, x ArtInstitute of his Berlin Bohemian circle,Schwarze Ferkel (Black Pig). 233/4" 171/4". Chicago. Between1898 and 1902he had a tumultuousliaison, which early feminists.She suggeststhat artistsof the late 19th ended in violence, with Tulla Larsen, the daughterof a centurycelebrated female procreative power as the time- prosperousNorwegian wine merchant.Peter Schjeldahl less essence of womanhoodin the face of,and perhaps as claims that Munch's madonnas demonstrate"the seem- a bulwark against, emergingfeminism. The traditional ingly miraculoustransformation, through art, of private restrictivedefinition of woman affirmedby the images of obsession into universal meaning."5And Munch scholar Munch and other Symbolistswas viewed as a challenge Reinhold Heller agrees that forMunch art was a means to, or retreatfrom, feminism's demands forpolitical and of presentinghis own emotionsand psychologicalexperi- social rightsfor women. Even thoughthis interpretation ences. In fact,Heller suggests that The Three Stages of is notinaccurate, it overemphasizesthe powerof feminism Woman represented a "synthesis of Munch's personal in the social, political,and artisticlandscape oflate-19th- experience of woman, an experience he abstracted and centuryEurope. The artisticpreoccupation with female transformedinto a universal statement."6 sexualityand fertilityis viewed as a responseto a single sociopoliticaldevelopment rather than as fullysituated and sharingin what was in factan increasinglyrestrictive WendySlatkin's 1980 article on the Symbolists'interest economic,social, and intellectualclimate forwomen. in themes of sexuality and maternitywas an important Scholarsof women's history have in the past dozenyears step in the directionof establishinga socially and cultur- analyzed the social and economiceffects of industrializa- ally based understandingof the Symbolists'conception of tion on women'slives and recognizedthat capitalistindus- women.,Slatkin dividedSymbolist images ofwomen into trialization during the late 18th and 19th centuries two groups:those that extol the virtuesof motherhood as (despite its contemporaneitywith feminismin the late foundin the oeuvres of Paul Gauguin, Eugene Carribre, 19thcentury) did almostnothing to improvethe economic Maurice Denis, and Paula Modersohn-Becker,and those and social position of women. In fact,industrialization that place motherhoodin the broadercontext of the life confinedwomen more than ever to the home, restricted cycle by combiningsymbols of maternitywith those of their economicand social opportunities,and emphasized death. It was in the lattergroup, alongside Gustav Klimt theirroles of wifeand mother. and Egon Schiele, that Slatkin situated Munch. The dominantforms of pre-industrialeconomic activ- Unfortunately,however, the only connectionSlatkin ity-agricultureand domesticmanufacturing--had gener- establishesbetween the artisticemphasis on femalesexu- ally permitteda physical integrationof workplaceand alityand maternityand contemporarysocial developments home, allowing many womento assume productiveroles appears as a negativeone. The Symbolists'notorious avoid- withinthe family'seconomic unit. The specializationand ance of referencesto contemporarysociety was linked to concentrationof workprocesses that characterizedindus- the (male) artists' refusal to acknowledge the recent trialization,however, led to a gradual separationof work- changes in the positionand status of womeninitiated by place and household,making it moredifficult for women,

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Fig. 3. EdvardMunch, The ThreeStages of Woman(1893-95), oil, charcoal,and casein on canvas, 641/2x 98V2". RasmusMeyers Samlinger, Bergen. particularlythose marriedand withchildren, to workout- numberof biological theories of sexual differencespawned side the home.Industrialization did notopen up newkinds by'Darwin's theoryof evolution,which stressedwomen's of employmentopportunities for women. Rather, the procreativecapabilities and duties. Munch'sart bears the emphasis changed toward heavy industries,which pro- impress of some of these notions of sexual difference:in videdjobs in areas such as mining,metallurgy, machines, style and subject matterhis art depicts womenas slaves railways,and constructionthat favoredmale workers.sThe to the dictatesof their reproductive physiologies. A plaus- surplus of labor in large urban areas also tendedto mar- ible case forthe influenceof these theorieson Munch can 9 ginalize women'sparticipation in the workforce. Despite be made by examining the artist's fundamentally this surplus,the living standardsof the workingand mid- materialisticand physiologicallybased view ofhuman life dle classes increased,resulting in fewereconomic incen- as expressedin his art and writings. tives forwives to workoutside the home,a conditionthat Many of Munch's works,whether or not they depict may have factoredin the most significantchange in women,express a profoundlymaterialistic conception of women'swork effected by industrialization: the notion that human life.In his lithographicSelf-Portrait (1895; British womenshould stop workingonce theymarried.'0 Museum), forexample, the centeredimage of the artist's The gradual exclusion of women fromthe workplace face is surroundedby darkenedspace, exceptfor the lower was accompanied by and certainly contributedto the borderin whicha skeletal forearmand hand appears. The developmentof the notionof "separate spheresof action" latter functionas mementomori-reminders of the physi- forthe sexes. The public sphere of the workplace,domi- cal matterupon whichthe lifeabove themis based and to nated bymen, was firmlyseparated from the private sphere which it will returnin death. The saturatedblackness of of the home and family,which was managed by women. the backgroundadmits no alternativeview. Life is mate- The educated bourgeoisiereadily absorbed and codified rially based; no spiritualprocesses come intoplay. these new social "specifications"into a set ofclass values. The interdependenceof life and death is even more The familycame to be regardedas a "procreativeunit," clearly stated in Dead Mother with Spring Landscape the primary functionof which was to safeguard and (1893; Fig. 5). A woman'scorpse rests in a cryptpainted enhance the cultural and social welfareof present and in deep tones of blue, a color oftenused to denote death. futuregenerations. Fundamental to the familywas the Aboveher is a large windowthrough which are seen lush woman in her roles of wifeand mother.She was increas- greengrass and birchtrees illuminated by bright sunlight. ingly regardedas the essential link betweenthe present What appears to be a fernabove her head seems to grow bourgeoisgeneration and the next,and her naturalprofes- fromher body.The artist'smessage seems clear: whenthe sion as bearer and nurturerwas repeatedlystressed by bodydecomposes, its substancesreturn to natureand yield late-19th-centurysocial theorists." new life. At root, we are material beings; nonspiritual Munch's(and otherSymbolist's) preoccupation with sex- transformationsare responsiblefor change, growth,new uality and fertilitythus can be situated in the historical life,and death. contextof a societyand economythat placed a renewed In several of the preparatorydrawings for The Three and concertedemphasis on the female roles of wife and Stages of Woman,the conceptionof a materially and mother.This climate helped shape and was in turninflu- physiologicallybased interdependenceof life and death is enced by certain scientificdevelopments, in particulara clearly stated. In the drawingArt (1893-95; Fig. 6), the

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Fig. 4. Edvard Munch,The Dance of LIfe (1899-1900),oil on canvas, 491/2x 75". National Gallery,Oslo. bodies of a man and a woman are tightlyenclosed in an prominentprofessor of zoology at Jena and Darwin'schief oval seedlike pouch out ofwhich sprouts a plant. The sur- popularizerin late-19th-centuryGermany.14 The principles roundingspace focusesattention to the essential organic -ofHaeckel's brand of Monism were clearly based on Dar- unityof plant and human that the centralmotif declares. winian thought. Munch was most likely familiar with These bodies are dead or dying and in the process are Haeckel's text,The Confessionof Faith of a Man ofScience, givingbirth to newlife. The compositionof the pen-and-ink whichformed the basis ofan addressHaeckel gavein Alten- drawing Metabolism (c. 1894; Munch Museum, Oslo) is burg in late 1892, at the time when Munch firstarrived similar to that of Art: a plant extends verticallyfrom a in Berlin and just shortlybefore he began the preparatory horizontally disposed decomposing body. Munch also drawingsfor The ThreeStages of Woman.The Confession includedbirds and, in the fardistance on the left,several was excerptedin many German newspapersand periodi- barelyperceptible human figures.The artistis informing cals, includingthe November1892 issue of Berlin'sFreie us that human bodies are only material, and when they Buhne (a journal that only two years later published an die their matter and energy are not lost but are trans- article on Munch).15 formedinto new formsof life. In The ConfessionHaeckel proposedan essential unity An entry in Munch's diary fromthe 1890s seems to among all living and nonliving things. All natural confirmthe above interpretation: phenomenawere only materialisticentities and products of the same kind of matter-an idea he codified It wouldbe a to sink to unite primitive pleasurableexperience into, as the "law of substance." He recognizedno distinction with ... that everlasting,everstirring earth .... I would betweenanimal and and inor- becomeone with and and treeswould vegetablekingdoms, organic it, plants growup matterand and nor God outof my rotting corpse .... I wouldbe "in"them, I would ganic matter, energy,body soul, liveon-that is eternity.12 and nature. He conceived the human soul in strictly materialisticterms, as "the sum ofphysiological functions Munchelaborated on his desireto live on afterdeath when performedby elementary organs which themselves are sim- he wrotein 1892: ply microscopicganglion cells of [the] brain,"'6and thus Wemust all believein and forthat he rejectedthe notionof personal immortality. However, be- immortality, also, matter, cause he that... thespirit of life lives on afterthe body is dead.... believedthat all matterand energyare conserved, Whatbecomes of the spirit of life, the power that holds a he claimed that the cosmosas a whole was immortal: bodytogether, the power that fosters the growth of physical It isjust as inconceivablethat any of the atoms of our brain matter?Nothing. ... A bodythat dies does not vanish--its or ofthe energiesof our spiritshould vanish out ofthe substanceis transformed,converted.... Nobody can say world,as thatany other particle of matter or energy could where[the spirit] goes to-to tryand assertits non-exis- do so. At our deaththere disappears only the individual tenceafter the body has diedis as ridiculousas insisting formin whichthe nerve-substance was and the on fashioned, tryingto demonstratehow or wherethat spiritwill personal"soul" which represented the work performed by continueto exist.13 this.The nervousmass pass overinto other combinations Heller that Munch's with the bydecomposition, and thekinetic energy produced by it is suggests preoccupation transformedinto other forms of motion.17 interdependenceof life and death and his decidedly naturalistand non-Christianconcept of immortality were The parallels betweenMunch's conception of natural and inspiredby the philosophicalMonism of Ernst Haeckel, human life and Haeckel's Monist systembecome obvious

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and providecrucial information about Munch'sperceptions human lifewas firmlyrooted in the Darwinian revolution as he preparedThe ThreeStages and the relatedpainting in the biologicalsciences. Haeckel was convincedthat the The Dance ofLife. innumerable varieties of plants and animals were all In SymbolicStudy (1893; Fig. 7), a gouachepreparatory branchesof a singlegenealogical tree, a notionthat formed drawing forThe Three Stages of Woman,the theme of a the foundationof Monism.18 And aspects of Munch's art life-deathinterdependence is present,although expressed reflectan awarenessof Darwinian conceptsof sexual differ- in somewhat less graphic terms than in Art and ence-as well as a numberof other"scientifically based" Metabolism.The decomposingcorpse in the lowerborder theories of sexual differencesspawned in part by Dar- is retainedand nowforms part of a circularrepresentation winism-which stressedthe female'sprocreative capabili- ofthe stages offemale life: at the leftborder is the virgin ties, inclinations,and obligations.19 withher hands crossedin frontof her genitalia; the sexual In her recent article, "Darwin and the Descent of temptresswith curvilinear forms and hornssprouting from Women,"Evelleen Richardscarefully scrutinized Darwin's her head is writhingin the upperborder; and at the right majorworks, On theOrigin of Species byMeans ofNatural border is a woman with a halo and her hands foldedin Selectionand The DescentofMan, and Selectionin Relation prayer. This last figure represents the "post-sexual" to Sex.20 Analyzingthe complementaryroles of men and woman,or widowperhaps, on the vergeof death, which is women in his theories of natural and sexual selection, depicted in the lower border.In this femininelife cycle, Richards shows how Darwin came to declare that there death is as inextricablya part as are the three stages were differencesbetween the mental powersof the two through which the live body progresses. However,the sexes, that theywere biologicallybased, and that women corpse in the lowerborder also stressesthe material and were innately domestic and naturally inferiorto men. physiologicalbasis ofhuman life,and hence,by extension, Accordingto Darwin,nature provides an unlimitedsupply the purely physiologicalbasis of each stage of feminine of unsolicited,fortuitous hereditary novelties. The sheer life illustratedin the image. The trio of femaleheads in fecundityof nature leads to a constantstruggle for exis- the centerof the image has replacedthe centralplants in tence in which those individuals fortunateenough to be the two earlier preparatorydrawings as the connecting endowedwith favorablenovelties will survivein greater link betweenlife and death. Just as death was conceived numbers,while their less fortunatepeers will be more both by Munch and Haeckel to be a strictlybiological, likely to perish. Sexual selection refersto the struggle nonspiritualprocess, so the functionsand actions of each betweenthe males ofa speciesfor possession of the females, stage of femalelife were viewed as dictatedby biological wherebythe successfulmales will be the strongest,most ratherthan intellectualforces. competitive,and most aggressiveand will thus leave the In The Three Stages of Womanand The Dance of Life, most progeny.Darwin claimed that, throughthe interac- death as a part of the life process is implied:the corpses tion of natural and sexual selection,man had becomesu- seen in the drawingsare absent,but the plants that grow periorto womanin courage,energy, and intellectand that fromthem are retained.In TheDance ofLife a thin,spindly these greaterphysical and mentaltraits were more readily flowergrows from the otherwisebarren earth between the transmittedto the male than to the femaleoffspring. white-cladwoman on the leftand the centralcouple. The The processof genetic mutation and transferwas notyet womanin whitepoints to it,directing attention to its pres- understood;the production of favorable hereditary variations ence. In The Three Stages of Woman,the plant takes the was regardedas requiringintelligence and courage,both of formof a tree that separates the three women fromthe whichwere male, not female,traits. Males were therefore man at the far right. The flowerand the tree serve to the innovatorsin thecourse of evolution, while females were remindthe viewerthat life flowsfrom and is directedby merelythe passivetransmitters of hereditary material. Dar- natural, material processesbeyond our control. win argues that womendo possess certainfaculties found Both Munchand Haeckel were influencedby Darwin-- lacking in man-maternal feeling,intuition, perception, their concentrationon the material, physical bases of imitation, altruism, and tenderness-characteristics he

This content downloaded from 209.129.16.124 on Tue, 21 Oct 2014 13:41:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Woman's ArtJournal 33 ascribedto lowerraces. He viewedfemales as primitive,non- in whichwas varying,and undifferentiated theirfunction, ?I::? to reproduce.The evolutionarydevelopment of womenhad ...... been arrested,as it were,resulting in the intellectuallyand physicallyinferior female "race.'"21 ?:'"? ;' 1 Richards out how little evidence Darwin mar- .. : .. 1 points ,:: :, .,;i shaled in support of his contentionsthat women were ' inferiorand that his conclusionswere J: :x ?? -: naturally argues ZJ-i ?_I~-r~ 'J shaped by a social climatein whichwomen were perceived ..~L~~..i Pe"Ri .30. as innatelyinferior to men. Darwinismwas "fedby Victor- dZk " ian assumptionsof the inevitabilityand rightnessof the \ ?? sexual divisionof labour; of woman's role as domesticmoral * ~ C preceptorand nurturerand man's role as free-rangingag- o??s-PLF u9- 4 C-- ';i gressiveprovider and jealous patriarch."22She stressesthat t ?. ...i:;~: ....~?~rICE: 8: ." , " Darwin's workmust also be viewed in the contextof the ,.7; 'i":.~.i:W.Ur"~F ,:?'".rr. scientificclimate of the 19th century,in which strictly materialisticexplanations for human behavior were sought. Duringthe 19thcentury the disciplines of biology, sociol- ogy,anthropology, medicine, and psychiatrywere domi- nated by purelybiological and physiologicalexplanations :.. of sexual differenceand were themselves,of course, influ- enced by the same social and political ideologies that shaped Darwin's thinking. Herbert Spencer, the best- knownsocial theorist(or social Darwinist)of the late 19th Fig. 7. Edvard Munch, Symbolic Study (1893), gouache on centuryclaimed that the arrest in evolutionarydevelop- cardboard, 22" x 271/?".Munch Museum, Oslo. mentof women came about because the large quantityof female energyrequired by the reproductiveprocess left as componentsof larger,all-encompassing natural proc- nothingfor her intellectualmaturation. The male repro- esses beyondtheir conscious control. In The Dance ofLife ductiverole was limitedto that offertilization, which pre- and The Three Stages of Woman,Munch portrayedthe sumably involvedthe expenditureof much less energy: inevitable,biological process and progressof female sexual thus more energyremained for male intellectual,moral, life,with procreation as the secondstage. The figures'stark and psychicdevelopment. Spencer referred to the physical frontal and profile poses and generalized features and mental"tax" thatreproduction necessitated, asserting immobilizethem as universalemblems of the threestages that the preservationof the species obligated women to of woman'slife. The sea as a universalsymbol of nature's "pay this tax and to submitto this sacrifice."23 unendingrepetition underscores the artist'sbelief in the British biologists Patrick Geddes and J. Arthur natural,inevitable process of female life. The horizonline Thompson carried Spencer's notions even furtherwith is highin bothpaintings, affirming human life as an earth- theirtheory of sexual differencesbased on cell metabolism. bound complexof biological and natural factsimmune to They claimed that male cells were "katabolic,"or active deistic,divine forces. The curving,winding contours weave and energetic,which explained man's greaterintellectual the figuresand natural elementstogether into a unified, power,aggressiveness, and competitiveness.Female cells, harmoniouswhole. on the otherhand, were "anabolic,"or passive, nurturing, In the artist's Madonna prints the "biological sub- and energy-retaining,and this explainedwoman's greater stances"of the fetusesand spermthat appear in theborders placidity,tenderness, and conservatism.Female energy assert that her primaryfunction is the physiologicalproc- was believedto be boundup in reproduction.With nothing ess of reproduction.This interpretationseems confirmed remainingfor active participationin society,woman's con- by Munch's famous commenton the painting: "Now life tributionto social progresswas confinedto her "reproduc- reaches out its hand to death. The chain is forgedthat tive sacrifice.'"24 binds the thousandsof generationsthat have died to the Profoundlyinfluenced by Darwin and Spencer, late- thousandsof generations yet to come."27Appearing to float 19th-centuryphysicians viewed women'sminds and souls in her own fluid-filled,amnioticlike sac, the madonna is as subjectto thephysiological dictates of their reproductive denied any measure of contactwith the worldbeyond by organs.Certain British and Americandoctors regarded the the sperm and the bulky, oversized fetuses swimming uterusand, variously,the ovaries,as the controllingorgans aroundher. The instrumentsof her own physiologicaldes- ofthe femalebody. Women's personalities were directed by tinyimprison her. one of these organs, and any mental or physical distur- Munch's women are disclosed as helpless pawns of bance was likely due to an ovarian or uterine problem. biological and sexual forcesand processes buried below Womenwere encouragedto "throwtheir weight"behind the level of consciousness.In the worksdiscussed above, the uterus or ovaries and to resistthe temptationsof the there is no suggestionof an intellectual or professional brain.25It was, moreover,the female reproductiveorgans spherein whichwoman might operate. She is cast onlyin thatengendered the maternalqualities necessaryfor child- the roles of sexual partnerand procreator,which, in the rearing.Because the brain was believedto respondto the scientific,social, and economic climate of Munch's era, operationof the reproductiveorgans, women were deemed translatedinto wifeand mother.0 mentallyconstituted to take care of childrenas well as physicallyconstituted to conceiveand give birth.26 The researchfor this article was conductedunder the guidanceand Darwinism-or perhapsmore correctly, the generalten- supportof professors Jack Flam and LindaNochlin of the Department dencyof 19th-century theorists to seek scientific/naturalis- ofArt History at the CityUniversity of New York. I thankthem for theirinsights and encouragement. tic explanationsof human behavior--spawnedan arrayof 1. Munch'soeuvre is dominatedby imagesof women. Those that theoriesthat cast humans, particularlywomen, as slaves are notportraits deal eitherwith issues of sexuality and fertility to the dictatesof their physiological mechanisms. Munch's or therelationship between women and death.For the latter see, art, by means of subject matterand style,casts humans forexample, The Sick Child (1885-86;National Gallery, Oslo);

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Death in the Sick Room (1893-94; National Gallery, Oslo); Dead Kunstsamlinger,entry number OKK T 2347. Motherand Child (1893; Kunsthalle, Bremen); Inheritance(1897- 13. Stang, Munch, 120, citing Munch's diary,Violet Book, in the Oslo 99; Munch Museum, Oslo); and Melancholy (1898; Munch Kommunes Kunstsamlinger,OKK 2760, January 8, 1892. Museum, Oslo). Interestingly,in his studies offemale familymem- 14. Heller, Munch: His Life and Work,63. Haeckel's most famous bers and friends,such as those ofhis sister Inger (1892; National books were The Historyof Creation (1868) and Riddle of the Uni- Gallery, Oslo) and his formerlove Dagny Juell (1893; Munch verse (1899). Museum, Oslo), who married Stanislaw Przybyszewska, the 15. Haeckel's address was published as a book in 1892. I examined Polish writerand leader ofthe Berlin Bohemian Circle Schwarze an English translation: Ernst Haeckel, The Confessionof Faith Ferkel (Black Pig), the women are portrayedas independent and of a Man of Science, J. Gilchrist, trans. (London: A.C. and C. assertive. Black, 1903). 2. So observes Reinhold Heller in his catalogue essay, "Love as a 16. Haeckel, Confession,46. Series of Paintings," in Edvard Munch: Symbols and Images 17. Ibid., 50. (National Gallery of Art, Washington,D.C., 1978,) 105. 18. Haeckel transformedand in the process misinterpretedDar- 3. In Reinhold Heller, Munch: His Life and Work(Chicago: Univer- winism. His Monism was nothing less than an antiteleological sityof Chicago, 1984), 129, citingmanuscript T 2547 in the Munch philosophyof life that, as it developed,took on increasinglyvitalis- Museum Archives, Oslo. tic and religious overtonesthat Darwin did not intend. See Alfred 4. The lost frame is mentioned by Ragna Stang, Edvard Munch: Kelly, The Descent of Darwin: The Popularization of Darwinism The Man and His Art, GeoffreyCulverwell, trans. (New York: in Germany,1860-1914 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Abbeville, 1977), 110, citing Jens Thiis, Edvard Munch og hans Carolina, 1981), 22-28. samtid. Slekten, livet og kunsten,geniet (Oslo: Gyldendal Norsk 19. In a later painting,Bathing Boys (c. 1904; Munch Museum, Oslo), Forlag, 1933) 218: "a symbolic frame with human sperm and Munch representsthe evolution ofman fromlower animals. This embryos which were also repeated later in the first color painting is illustrated and discussed by RobertRosenblum, Mod- lithograph.This offensiveframe was afterwardsremoved." ern Painting and the NorthernRomantic Tradition:Friedrich to 5. Peter Schjeldahl, "Munch: The Missing Master," Art in America Rothko (London: Thames and Hudson, 1975), 113-14. (May-June 1979), 88. 20. Evelleen Richards,"Darwin and the Descent ofWomen," in David 6. Reinhold Heller, "The Iconographyof Edvard Munch's Sphinx," Oldroydand Ian Langham, eds., The WiderDomain ofEvolution- Artforum(October 1970), 72, 80. ary Thought (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel, 1983), 62-76. For 7. Wendy Slatkin, "Maternity and Sexuality in the 1890s," WAJ more about the sexual biases of Darwinism, see Barbara Ehren- (S/S 1980), 13-19. reich and Deirdre English, For Her Own Good: 150 Years of the 8. Robyn Dasey, "Women'sWork and the Family: Women Garment Experts' Advice to Women(Garden City,N.Y.: Anchor,1978), 106- Workersin Berlin and Hamburg Before the First WorldWar," in 107, and Elaine Showalter,The Female Malady: Women,Madness, Richard J. Evans and W. R. Lee, eds., The GermanFamily: Essays and English Culture, 1830-1980 (New York: Pantheon, 1985). on the Social Historyof theFamily in Nineteenth-and Twentieth- 21. Richards, "Darwin and the Descent of Women,"62-76. Century Germany (Totowa, N.J.: Barnes & Noble, 1981), 221; 22. Ibid., 75. Theresa M. McBride, "The Long Road Home: Women'sWork and 23. Lorna Duffin,"Prisoners of Progress: Women and Evolution," in Industrialization," in Becoming Visible: Womenin European His- Sara Delamount and Lorna Duffin,eds., The Nineteenth-Century tory(Boston: Houghton Mifflin,1977), 283. Woman;Her Cultural and Physical World(London: Croom Helm; 9. Dasey, "Women Garment Workers,"223. 1978), 62, citingHerbert Spencer,The Principles ofEthics, I (Lon- 10. McBride, "Women'sWork and Industrialization," 284; Louise A. don: Williams & Norgate, 1892-93), 533. Tilly, Joan W. Scott, and Miriam Cohen, "Woman's Work and 24. Showalter, The Female Malady, 122, citing Patrick Geddes and European FertilityPatterns," Journal ofInterdisciplinaryHistory J. ArthurThompson, The Evolution of Sex (London, 1889), 269. (Winter 1976), 474. 25. Ehrenreich and English, For Her Own Good, 108-14. 11. Dasey, "Women Garment Workers,"221; Karin Hausen, "Family 26. Showalter,The Female Malady, 123. and Role-Division: The Polarization of Sexual Stereotypesin the 27. Heller, Munch: His Life and Work,129, citing manuscriptT 2547 Nineteenth Century-An Aspect of the Dissociation ofWork and in the Munch Museum Archives,Oslo. Family life," in The German Family, 63-64. These ideas were stressed by artists of the period as well. See Stewart Buettner, "Images of Modern Motherhood in the Art of Morisot, Cassatt, KRISTIE JAYNE is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Modersohn-Becker,Kollwitz," WAJ(F'86/W'87),14-21, and Elaine Art History at the City University of New York and a curatorial Shefer,"Woman's Mission," WAJ(S/S 1986), 8-12. assistant in the Department of Fine Arts at the Jewish Museum, 12. Stang, Munch, 119, citing Munch's diary in the Oslo Kommunes New York City.

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