Edvard Munch 1863-1944

Woodcut printed in green, light and dark-blue, yellow, orange, beige-pink and black, the colours fresh, 1898, signed in pencil (faint), printed by the artist or Nielsen probably around 1917, with the stencilled moon and its reflection in the water, on fine japan paper, a small loss in lower centre of sheet, other losses along edges and at corners of sheet, a restored loss at upper left edge of sheet just extending into image, a repaired tear at lower right edge of sheet, backed with a thicker sheet of japan paper

This beautiful and haunting print exemplifies Munch’s engagement with symbolist ideas of colour and form embodying meaning.  A young girl stares out to sea, her sensual tresses of red hair seeping blood-like onto her virginal white dress. Beside her sits a macabre death-like figure clothed in black, which she is fated to become.  The monumental quality of the figures and their static positioning denote their importance as signifiers of meaning. They are nameless, faceless ciphers in an anonymous landscape, where the cycle of life becomes a sinister meditation on the fate of man’s existence.  The rough texture of the woodblock has been incorporated into the work, and the limited colours and basic shapes give powerful expression to Munch’s preoccupation with the existential anguish of loneliness, sex and death.