Edvard Munch

Woodcut printed in grey/blue, 1902, a very rare early impression, apparently before Woll's first state, (before the delineation of the figure, the completion of the rocks and before the masking of the right edge of the composition), signed in pencil, on sturdy cream wove paper, with wide margins, in good condition apart from slight light-staining, scattered foxing, minor handling creases in lower margin, and two unobtrusive printer's creases in the dark area of the composition

In generally good condition, the foxing and paper discoloration is relatively minor. The two mentioned printer's creases are to the left and the right of the sitters and measure approximately 80mm and 100mm. The minor handling creases to the lower margin just extending into the lower image
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The years of 1901-02 marked a particularly dramatic burst of graphic creativity for Edvard Munch as he repeatedly revisited earlier imagery – Moonlight, Vampire, The Kiss – and by quietly altering his own woodcut technique, managed to evoke new meaning with familiar compositions.   His 1896 work Melancholy received a similar reprisal, along with a reversal; Munch repositioned the figure to the far right of the composition and added smaller figures next to the boat at upper left, thereby bringing the woodcut closer to the 1891 painting of the same subject.  Each of these works tells the story of Munch's friend Jappe Nilssen, a writer and critic destitute over the end of his affair with the married Oda Lasson Krohg, now seen as one of the figures next to the skiff and about to depart with her husband.   The scene is also set against Munch's beloved Åsgårdstrand, the small Norwegian shipping village where he kept a summer home, and whose recognizable and sensuously curving shoreline is echoed throughout the artist's oeuvre.

 

 Munch's earlier rendition of Melancholy evidenced his truly idiosyncratic woodblock technique which involved using a fine jigsaw to cut the blocks into discrete pieces.  These were then inked separately and reassembled for printing.   In such instances, the artist also painstakingly selected wood planks with contrasting grains, or specifically oriented knots, for both the drawing or background block and the colour block. The result of this careful choice of material, combined with the ability to manipulate the ink colour and depth on the various "puzzle" pieces, was an unprecedented range of printing variations. 

 

When revisiting this woodcut in 1901, the more mature artist chose to mute both the complexity of his jigsaw technique, as well as the interplay of countering wood grains.  Both blocks selected for Melancholy III had subtle horizontal striations and only the colour block was split by the jigsaw.  The result was a composition which now evoked the dark despair of the jilted lover at far right with a quiet intensity.  This effect is particularly evident in the extremely rare impression offered here, which is most likely a trial proof printed in a single grey-blue colour and solely from the drawing or background block.   (Woll records similar early proofs printed on heavy wove paper in the collection of the Munch Museet.)  In this monochromatic printing, unchallenged by vertical striations or contrasting hues, the simplicity of the composition achieves a heightened abstraction which aptly conveys the torment of love lost.  The figure, whose outline is barely a suggestion, remains engulfed in both the shore and the sea as he stares into the emotional abyss stretching out before him.