He lost his mother to tuberculosis when he was five year’s old and then his sister at the age of 13. His sad childhood, his restless, melancholic soul and the Norwegian nature shaped Edvard Munch’s artwork. His masterpieces, including Mystic Shore, were considered avant-garde in modern art. Almost 130 years ago, he created the painting The Scream, an epitome of existential angst. To this day, the ashen skull with its mouth ripped wide open in agony continues to fascinate people around the world. Millions use it every day as an emoji 😱. One year prior, in 1892, he painted Mystic Shore, his earliest symbolic work. The dusky brightness of the midnight sun gives the painting a surreal tone, imbued with a special intensity in its amorphous rocks and seemingly troll-like boulder. Munch left behind 40,000 paintings, graphics, letters, photographs, and work materials when he died in 1944 in Oslo. His existential motifs, including loneliness, love, fear, jealousy, and melancholy, have proven timeless and ever relevant. “In my art, I attempt to explain life and its meaning to myself. My art reflects a desire to bring light into my life.” Munch’s Mystic Shore is on display at Museum Würth 2 in Künzelsau as part of the exhibition “The Long View. Reinhold Würth and His Art.” A worthy frame for this world art.
Mystic Shore (1892), Oil on canvas, Würth Collection.
CHARLOTTE, 12 years old
AT THE BEACH WITH CHARLOTTE
You don’t see the happy face on the small hill at the bottom right straight away. The hill is probably just shaped like that, the boulder formed like that. Nobody painted anything on it. Actually, I think the entire landscape was thought up in Munch’s head. He discovered the beach as well as the hill with the friendly face. And then he painted the shore. With a dim light, the pink sun starting to set, drawing a straight line over the water to create a bright light that shines onto the waves and the dark rocks and the greenish-brown hill at the front of the picture. I imagine that the rocks in front represent the fact that sometimes we have to walk along a rocky road in life. I think the picture is very creative and unique. It is quite thought-provoking.
