Here are my top 11 Edvard Munch quotes
Edvard Munch (1840 – 1926) was a Norwegian painter. His best known work, The Scream, has become one of the iconic images of world art.
The Scream was conceived in Kristiania (now Oslo). According to Edvard Munch, he was out walking at sunset, when he ‘heard the enormous, infinite scream of nature’. The painting’s agonised face is widely identified with the angst of the modern person. Between 1893 and 1910, he made two painted versions and two in pastels, as well as a number of prints. One of the pastels would eventually command the fourth highest nominal price paid for a painting at auction.
As his fame and wealth grew, his emotional state remained insecure. He briefly considered marriage, but could not commit himself. A breakdown in 1908 forced him to give up heavy drinking, and he was cheered by his increasing acceptance by the people of Kristiania and exposure in the city’s museums. His later years were spent working in peace and privacy. Although his works were banned in Nazi Germany, most of them survived World War II, securing him a legacy.
My Top 10 Edvard Munch Quotes
I was walking down the road with two friends when the sun set; suddenly, the sky turned as red as blood. I stopped and leaned against the fence, feeling unspeakably tired. Tongues of fire and blood stretched over the bluish black fjord. My friends went on walking, while I lagged behind, shivering with fear. Then I heard the enormous, infinite scream of nature.
— Edvard Munch
Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye… it also includes the inner pictures of the soul.
— Edvard Munch
In common with Michelangelo and Rembrandt I am more interested in the line, its rise and fall, than in color.
— Edvard Munch
No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love.
— Edvard Munch
A work of art can only come from the interior of man. Art is the form of the image formed upon the nerves, heart, brain and eye of man.
— Edvard Munch
The way one sees is also dependent upon one’s emotional state of mind. This is why a motif can be looked at in so many ways, and this is what makes art so interesting.
— Edvard Munch
If what you want to paint is the emotive mood in all its strength … then you must not sit and stare at everything and depict it exactly as one sees it.
— Edvard Munch
Certainly a chair can be just as interesting as a human being. But first the chair must be perceived by a human being… You should not paint the chair, but only what someone has felt about it.
— Edvard Munch
Anybody who perceives colors can become a painter. It’s simply a question of whether or not one has felt anything and whether one has the courage to recount the things one has felt.
— Edvard Munch
Any number of holier-than-thou honorable realists walk around in the belief that they have accomplished something, simply because they tell you for the hundredth time that a field is green and a red-painted house is painted red.
— Edvard Munch
When I paint, I never think of selling. People simply fail to understand that we paint in order to experiment and to develop ourselves as we strive for greater heights.
— Edvard Munch
For More Information on Edvard Munch
See Wikipedia: Edvard Munch
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