Woman's Art Inc. 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 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Woman's Art Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Woman's Art Journal. http://www.jstor.org 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 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 29 ..... , .: ?. :...:? i ? ?::%ii: i -? ??I .. L ii :i ? ??ii::...... i :.'iii ...... ii et 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), litho- graph, 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