Variance

"The true artist only ever depicts himself."

- the movie Stealing Beauty

Ingeborg and I went to see the Munch Museum in Oslo. If you're not familiar with Edvard Munch's name, I'm sure you've seen his most famous work, The Scream, or one of countless allusions to the painting. The central figure, with his mouth agape and hands on the side of his face, has become unbelievably ingrained in popular culture.  

I remember learning in Modern Art class in college that the intense agony Munch expressed through The Scream was influenced by the long hours of darkness during a Scandinavian winter. We were told that darkness leads to Seasonal Affective Disorder, cultural pessimism, and dark, tortured, art. While I have no trouble accepting this view, I wondered if any Scandinavian artist was ever inspired by the long hours of light in the summer. There's just as much light in Scandinavia as anywhere else in the world; it's just unevenly distributed throughout the year. Theoretically, there should be just as much manic, ecstatic art emerging from northern latitude societies as there are agony-ridden, depressing works. I thought there should be more extreme fluctuation of emotion - a greater variance, not a different mean. 

When you visit the Munch Museum, The Scream is located in one of the very first rooms you enter. This surprised me because I expected to have to wait for it, search for it - much like seeing the Mona Lisa in the Louvre. Ingeborg and I even shared a laugh when she looked straight at The Scream and didn't realize it was the real thing. I guess we were both surprised. 

After the first few rooms, with displays centering on the themes of life, death, rebirth, and agony, I had decided that Munch was a tortured soul. I started wondering if he was afflicted with a terminal disease that caused him to contemplate the ephemeral nature of his existence. I started to form the theory in my head that Scandinavian artists did not create joyful works because even if their mood was lighter in the summers, they probably spent all their time outdoors enjoying the sun, not indoors painting.

Gradually, the thematic nature of the displays lightened. In fact, a significant number of Munch's works have themes of love and light. You'll see two of my favorites below. The Sun was especially neat to see in person because like Van Gogh, Munch left some thick globs of paint on his canvas, which gave the work a very active, 3-D texture. I love how the colors make it feel like the sun is coming out of the canvas at you.

In the end, I concluded that the textbooks are correct, that much of Munch's art is influenced by darkness during the Scandinavian winters. However, art historians too quickly forget that some of his artworks are inspired by light and joy in the Scandinavian summers. There's a wider variance, not a different mean.

The Embrace, photographed by me at the Munch
Museum, Oslo, 2014 

The Sun, photographed by me at the Munch Museum,
Oslo, 2014