Edvard Munch, Anxiety by Atelier Liesjes

About "Edvard Munch, Anxiety"

by Atelier Liesjes

About the artwork

This painting is based on two earlier rooms: the anxious humanity that progresses as if it is driven by ominous elemental forces, as it was first conceived in the Karl Johanstraat at night; and a certain view of the Oslo Fjord, already seen in The Scream. Both were destined to return with great faithfulness in Fear and in other works from the same period.

Norwegian fear, like its German counterpart, had become the key term not only for the central pictorial content of Munch, but for the whole tradition that can be traced back to the philosophies of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, the plays of Strindberg and Ibsen, and the Northern European modern aesthetic contribution in general.

In Anxiety, Munch repeats many elements of The Scream closely. The same jetty where a single estranged character lived reappears, as does the lake in the distance, the two boats, the church, and other buildings that are just a little less blurry along the coast than before. They are all quoted from the earlier work, as are the intense swirls of concentrically enlarging lines that define and ultimately embrace land, sea and air.

However, when The Scream addresses the horror experienced in total isolation by a single being, Anxiety plays on collective despair. the sense of fear in this work is even stronger, though less pervasive, than in The Scream, because despair is carried here by a group rather than by an isolated individual.

Edvard Munch (Løten (Hedmark), 12 December 1863 - Ekely near Osl