In 1983 Edvard Much debuted his latest creation: a portrait of a man standing on a bridge, blood-red sky hanging over a distant Oslo, his expression overcome by horror as he wails to the onlooking observer. Known as ‘The Scream of Nature’ in the original German and as the ‘Shriek’ Norwegian, nowadays, to millions around the world, it is simply known as ‘The Scream’. With two theft attempts, a record-breaking auction sale, hundreds of imitations, countless mockeries and parodies, it has climbed up to the rarified air of paintings that reside in the collective consciousness. CNN placed it at number four in its list of most famous paintings, losing out only to Van Gogh’s The Starry Night and Da Vinci’s The Last Supper and The Mona Lisa. It is, by any reasonable standards, an artistic masterpiece.
Yet, as I walked through Bergen’s KODE museum which hosts a few of the artist’s other works, it dawned on me I knew virtually nothing about Munch. Up until that day, I hadn’t even known the artist was Norwegian (I don’t know why, but I had always assumed the painter was German… Munch-Munich maybe). Now, I am nowhere close to an art connoisseur, when a conversation about art pops up at a dinner party I mostly quietly nod my head, but to not even know the country of origin of one of the world’s most well-known artists… I decided to make up for my ignorance and learn a little more about the artist.
As it turns out, Munch was the backend to a century of innovative and talented Norweigian painters, who not only managed to put Norway on the map artistically but were also instrumental in constructing a national identity for recently independent Norway. What makes it even more interesting is that a century before that, back in the 1700s, there was virtually no art scene in the country.
So how did this relatively small Scandinavian nation turn from a cultural backwater into one of Europe’s foremost artistic centers?
The Scream - Edvard Munch
Setting the Stage:
As far as centuries go, the 19th was a busy one: the colonization of Africa, abolishing of Slavery in the United States, the fall of the Spanish, Ottoman, and Holy Roman Empire, the Meiji Restoration in Japan. In the first couple decades alone we have the invention of the steam-powered train as well as the typewriter, as the world transformed under the industrial revolution. But in terms of Norweigian history, the single most important advent of the 19th century was the rise of nationalism.
For most of human history, the idea of a nation was non-existent. By nation I mean an organized community of people formed on the base of a common language, ethnicity, history, culture, and so on. Nowadays most countries are nation-states, where one nationality makes up the majority of the population. Most people who live in Italy identify as Italian, most people who live in Spain identify as Spanish. That seems obvious now, but for most of human history that wasn’t the case. Either a single nationality was split up under different kings or chiefs, or they were subjugated by an imperial power such as the Roman or British Empire. The Italian city-states of the renaissance went to war with each other as much as they did with foreign powers. The same went for Germanic tribes bordering the Roman Empire, many being allied with the great imperial power rather than raiding it. Having a shared ethnicity or similar cultures didn’t really matter much. To sum it up, for most of human history, you served your ruler, not your people. And at the dawn of the 19th century, the king of Norway was Christian VII of Denmark. As the name might give it away, he was not Norwegian.
Winter Scene from Vågå by Gustav Wentzel.jpg
With the advent of first the American and then the French Revolution, ideas about nationhood began to spread throughout Europe. The idea of a people determining its own fate was especially exciting to the inhabitants of Norway, who had been itching under foreign rule for nearly half a millennia. From 1397 onwards, the kingdom of Norway would be ruled first by Danish kings, and later (from 1814) Swedish Kings. While the transition from a foreign king to their own ruler would not come until the beginning of the next century, the 1800s were a time of great importance for Norwegian self-identity, mostly because before the 19th century, it didn’t really exist. Or rather, it wasn’t very clear. They shared a similar culture, language, and history with the neighboring powers which had ruled them, meaning there was little that was distinctly Norwegian. So a question came naturally to many intellectuals and artists of the day: what makes Norway Norway?
Pick up a brochure or go over to Norway’s tourism website and the answer is as clear as day: nature. From the stunning northern lights past the arctic circle to the vast and jagged mountains, flocks of tourists flock to the Scandinavian country every year to gaze upon the breathtaking landscapes. And try having a conversation with someone about Norway without them bringing up the Fjords. It is close to impossible. The coastal features have become nearly synonymous with the country. Yet, at the break of the 19th century linking the countries national identity with the rugged natural features would not have been such a straight forwards idea. What we think is beautiful now was not what people thought was beautiful three hundred years ago, after all.
Bridal Procession on the Hardangerfjord by Hans Gude and Adolph Tidemand
Changing Conception of Beauty:
If you were to take a survey of what people think the most beautiful country in Europe is, it would not be surprising if Norway would rank high amongst the answers. Just google the same question and it’s hard to find any list that doesn’t include the Scandinavian nation. Yet, if you were to turn back the clock by four hundred years and ask the same question again, there would likely be no mention of Norway. If anything the idea that the northern country would be considered beautiful would have been seen as utterly bizarre.
Since Norway hasn’t dramatically transformed in the last four centuries, at least as far as I know, why are the two opinions so discordant? The answer is in the eye of the beholder. Aesthetic values change over time. We’ve all seen how drastically fashion changes every decade or so, what was hip one day becomes unfashionable the next. Most other aesthetic considerations changed through time as well, even if few can keep up with the breakneck pace the world of apparel devours through different styles. In fact, through most of human history, aesthetic tastes changed slowly, driven in large part by shifts in the underlying conditions of the world people live in. But even our appreciation of something as everlasting and unchanging as nature has transformed radically through the ages. In fact, for medieval people, wild untamed nature was not something to be thought of as beautiful.
Looking up to an imposing mountain pass with steep walls of pure rock hanging over a green valley or watching a nature documentary of some remote lush jungle forest you may ask yourself how anyone could not think nature to be beautiful. What you may not take into account is that once you’re done staring at the awe-inspiring view you can simply get in your car and drive away. Or even more easily, when watching a great nature documentary narrated by a soothing British voice on Tv, you can click a little red button at the top of your remote and be done with nature for the day. That was obviously not the case for someone living at the turn of the first millennium.
A mountain crossing for a man of the middle ages was a dreadful task, with chances of landslides, snowstorms, or even a simple fall, all of which could result in death. Lush woods meant predators. Powerful rivers meant drowning. You wouldn’t calmly watch a storm rolling in if you were concerned with the very likely possibility of a flood. To the medieval man, simply put, nature meant danger, not beauty. It is hard to appreciate something when you’re scared it can damage your livelihood or even kill you. Beauty, by contrast, was something safe, something man-made and which man could control.
Waterfall in Telemark by August Cappelen
The 18th century saw the beginning of a change in the relationship between man and nature. The industrial revolution, urbanization, and the reclaiming of wildland for agricultural use meant nature was no longer the old foe that it had been for medieval serfs. With the imminent sense of danger gone, nature began being reconsidered. The Irish philosopher Edmund Burke captured the shifting aesthetic values in his landmark treatise ‘A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful’. Burke drew a line between two different types of aesthetic consideration: the beautiful, which was the well-formed and pleasing value of the middle ages, and the sublime, which is what has the power to both compel and destroy. A flower in bloom is beautiful, a stormy sea is sublime. Burke argued the latter was a more important value, as it evoked stronger feelings in the observer. He was not alone, as a growing artistic movement that reflected this view started spreading around Europe. Artists, poets, and intellectuals began to embrace the fear and horror of the natural world alongside its towering proportions and devastating awe. This movement is now known as Romanticism.
Winter at the Sognefjord by Johan Christian Dahl
The Father of Norwegian Painting:
At the turn of the 19th century, as the seeds of romanticism and nationalism were being spread throughout Europe, a young Johan Christian Dahl was begging his apprentice as a painter. Born to a poor family of fishermen in 1788, his artistic talent garnered attention from local painters, one of whom took him on as an apprentice. In 1811 he was accepted at the Academy of Copenhagen, as Norway itself had no such artistic institution at the time. During his time at the Academy, Dahl’s appreciation of nature grew, which led to his choice of dedicating himself to landscape painting. The choice was quite brazen, as at the time landscape painting was held in contempt by many, the only acceptable landscapes were imaginary ones, with heroic components. But, breaking from tradition, Dahl wanted to be faithful to nature. Following the new Romantic current of the time, he believed that landscape painting was not merely about capturing a view, instead, the artist should try and capture its mood and essence. Dahl found some fame in Copenhagen, even attracting the attention of Prince Christian Frederik, but as the academy was still firmly holding on to their traditional views there was little room for advancement. In 1818 he made the decision to move.
An Eruption of Vesuvius by Johan Christian Dahl
The Romantic movement had found fertile ground in Germany and especially so in Dresden, so that was where Dahl went. After his arrival he quickly made himself at home, befriending many of the exponents of the romantic movements. He grew particularly close to Caspar David Friedric, whose ‘Wandered Above a Sea of Fog’ has since become the poster of the Romantic movement. In 1820 he was invited to join Prince Christian Frederik in Italy. During this period he flourished as an artist, his style growing freer. His pieces portraying the Gulf of Naples are considered amongst his best. It was also during his time that Dahl’s appreciation of the distant natural landscapes of his native Norway grew. While he would live the rest of his life in Dresden, where he was made a professor in 1926, he would often return to his homeland for long stretches where he would paint the local landscapes. The dramatic views he portrayed were widely popular, and with them grew the consideration of Norway’s aesthetic beauty.
View from Stalheim by Johan Christian Dahl
The Golden Age:
Dahl’s contribution to Norwegian painting goes beyond the representation of his century to a wider European audience. He was one of the founders of the Art Society and the National Gallery in Christiania (modern-day Oslo), to which he donated a substantial part of his work. His legacy also lived on in his mentorship. Discontent with the way his own early apprenticeship had gone, complaining that he was taken advantage of rather than taught, Dahl was keen to teach those who sought out his help. Amongst his students were many young Norwegian artists. Many of these painters, such as Peder Balke and Thomas Fearnley, would go on to form the bulk of the first wave of painters of the golden age alongside Dahl.
By the mid 19th century, Norwegian Romanticism had firmly established itself. Not only as a painting style either, as many poets and musicians concerned themselves with a nostalgic and distinctly nationalistic take on their country. Folk tales and rural living were central to the movement’s idealistic vision of Norway. In many paintings of this era, small villages and farmers are depicted alongside the dramatic Norwegian landscapes.
Norwegian Highlands by Hans Gude
Dusseldorf school had replaced Dresden as the main colony for Norwegian painters, where the central figure of this period, Hans Gude, resided. Born in Christiana in 1825, he moved to Dusseldorf at the age of sixteen to pursue landscape painting. Towards the end of his career he moved away from the grandiose, and a little exaggerated, depiction of Norwegian mountains so characteristic of the Romantic movement to more realistic studies of nature. This change in style was not unique to Gude, as many other young Norwegian painters moved away from Romanticism to other contemporary styles such as Naturalism or Surrealism.
It was during this period that the question arose as to how Norwegian ‘Norwegian Romanticism’ really was. Both Dahl and Gude, the two main exponents, had studied and worked in Germany. Their target audience were mainly Germans, not Norwegians, and often enough their homeland was marketed as a distant exotic land. Gude himself argued that his style was uniquely his own, and he was not merely copying the German style. The debate led to a strengthened position of the newly founded Norwegian Academy, which more people started seeing as the rightful home of Norwegian Romanticism.
Albertine at the Police Doctor's Waiting Room by Christian Krohg
The 1880s saw a generation of young artists returning to Norway. The migration brought with it a variety of different styles from all over Europe, from naturalism to French impressionism. The sense of national pride was not lost in the style transition, as naturalist painters such as Erik Werenskiold had a much more overtly nationalistic tone and motifs than previous artists. Werenskiold depicted idyllic pictures of the countryside, believing that the farmers should be the center of Norwegian identity, not the intellectuals of the cities. This sense of nationalist pride was not uniform in the movement, though, as other painters, such as Christian Krohg, believed that naturalism and art, in general, should not be used as a political tool but rather should remain separate from it and concentrate on itself.
September by Erik Werenskiold
Edvard Munch:
When Edvard Munch began his artistic education in 1881, enrolling in the Norwegian National Academy of Fine Arts, Christiania was in the midst of its artistic boom. Born in 1863, Munch’s childhood was not a happy one, his mother and sister passing of tuberculosis, while his other sister being diagnosed with a mental illness. His father’s morbid pessimism and religious overzealousness did not help the situation. Paired with his own poor health, Edvard felt that death was coming for him for most of his childhood. After a quick stint studying engineering, Edvard decided to drop out and become a painter, much to his father’s disappointment.
Much’s generation was the first to receive a majority of their artistic education in Norway. At the academy, he was taught, and greatly influenced, by Christian Krohg. He showed incredible talent, picking up the lessons very quickly. During this time Edvard fell in with Christiania’s bohemian crowd, Hans Jæger first amongst them. A fervent nihilist, Jæger was the center of much controversy in his life. His novel Fra Kristiania-Bohêmen led to his arrest for infringement of public morals and blasphemy. This nihilism and existential angst can be seen in much of Munch’s own work, which stirred up a fair bit of controversy itself. His style began to verge away from the impressionist and naturalist styles prominent at the time, becoming more interested in what his subjects represented than what they actually looked like. His 1981 painting Melancholy was praised by Krohg as Norway’s first symbolic painting.
Melancholy by Edvard Munch
Once his education was finished Munch left Norway. He traveled throughout much of Europe, settling down in Paris and Berlin for a time. Unlike other Norwegians who traveled abroad before him, he did not paint his homeland but rather concentrated on what he dubbed The Frieze of Life: A Poem about Life, Love and Death. His focus was on life itself, with its highs and lows, miseries and passions, on full display. One such painting, Death in the Sickroom, depicted the death of his sister. The Scream is another piece that belongs to this collection, depicting a particular moment in his life, where while walking with some friends he was so overcome by anxiety and despair that he could hear nature screeching. The name of the painting, in fact, is not referring to the man, but instead the world around him. Other paintings in the series such as the Madonna or the Dance of Life were not about his own personal life, but rather the universal emotions such as love, despair, and loss.
The Dance of Life by Edvard Munch
In 1908 Munch’s anxiety finally got the best of him, leading to a nervous breakdown. Suffering from hallucinations and paranoia he voluntarily checked himself into a clinic. The treatment was successful and he returned to Norway in 1909. His newly stabilized mood could be seen in his art, which had less sorrowful subjects and the use of brighter colors. This new peace of mind was further helped by his acceptance by the Kristiania’s art scene and the general public, which had remained quite antagonistic even while he had found success elsewhere in the continent.
Starry Night by Edvard Munch
His later life was rocked by the First and Second World War. The rise of the Nazi party in Germany was especially threatening as many of his patrons were Jewish German. The Nazis also saw his art as primitive and obscene and removed all of his paintings from German galleries. When the German’s invaded Norway, Munch lived in fear for both his life and the pieces he had hidden in his home. He died in 1944 at the age of 80. The Nazi party organized a grand funeral in an attempt to co-opt his memory to their cause, but it didn’t particularly stick. All of his pieces were donated to the city of Oslo. The Munch Museum was opened in 1963, what would have been his one-hundredth birthday.