Edvard Munch – Norwegian painter

Edvard Munch was a Norwegian painter and graphic artist, expressionist. He illustrated man’s emotional life in love and death.
Edvard was born on December 12, 1863 in Loieten near Kristiania (now Oslo). He was the son of a military doctor.
The childhood of the future artist was not bright and left a mark on his psyche. Disease and death followed him all the time. Munch was born a weak child and suffered from bronchitis and rheumatism. And when the boy was five years old, his mother, suffering from tuberculosis, died. He forever remembered her pale face. Later, from the same illness, the older sister of the artist died. She was only 15 years old. Then suddenly his brother Andreas, who had just married, died. But especially hard he survived the death of his father. At that time he lived in France and could not come to the funeral and fell into a deep depression.

In addition to personal tragedies, a significant role in his disease played his way of life. The young talented artist had a bohemian life, which was always accompanied by carousing and drinking. In Europe, Munch was seriously addicted to alcohol. At that time, his main masterpieces were born. But everything has its price. His nerves were on edge. He broke up with his girlfriend Tulla Larsen, the daughter of the largest Norwegian wine merchant.
And the disease literally captured the artist. He started hallucinating. In 1908, a close friend persuaded him to undergo a course of treatment at Dr. Daniel Jakobson’s private clinic in Copenhagen. Munch spent eight months in hospital and did not stop drawing. He even painted a portrait of Professor Jacobson, which became one of his best works.

Talented painter Edvard Munch

In 2004 Scream and Madonna were stolen from the Munch Museum and on August 31, 2006 they were found. Pictures restoration lasted two years, and on May 23, 2008 masterpieces took their usual places in the museum.
His painting Scream was sold at Sotheby’s for a record high price – almost 120 million dollars – and became the most expensive work of art in the world ever exhibited at public auction.
Scream always evoked mystical feelings. It seemed to be something like a terrible prophecy about the end of the world. Red-brown sky with colorful clouds and a frightened creature are fearful. Initially, Munch called the picture Scream of Nature. According to his memoirs he once saw a similar landscape in reality. As a result, he created as many as four versions of the amazing picture. Three of them are now in the museums of Oslo, and the fourth has always been in the private collection of Olsen.
Many people believe that Scream is the fruit of the author’s sick imagination, who suffered from a mental disorder.

Tulla Larsen

True, there are supporters of the ufological version: allegedly an artist, without knowing, came into contact with an alien who appeared on his canvas…
There is one absolutely truthful fact: Munch could not boast mental health. Different sources call different diagnoses – manic-depressive psychosis, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia.
The artist died on January 23, 1944 in Ekely outside Oslo.