Liquified flesh in edvard munch's paintings - Research Paper Example

? Edvard Munch College Presented to Edvard Munch Edvard Munch was a Norwegian artist but was mostly located in Germany where he worked on most of his paintings. Munch was a renowned painter whose work was to be developed later for printmaking and worked in various graphic media that included lithography, woodcuts and etching. He was remarkable for communicating most of these feelings, perceptions and ideas through painting. Munch was a symbolist artist. The symbolist artists used to communicate ideas and perspectives through paintings. The era of symbolic art lasted between the late 19th century and the early 20th century. In order to understand the ‘liquid flesh’ concept as indicated, there is a need to understand Symbolic artistic style that employed images to convey ideas or experiences. In this regard, symbols were used as signs to communicate a perspective. In symbolism, the artist devised a way of communicating with images while avoiding portraying these images in a naturalistic manner as they appeared to the audience this involved avoiding vanishing points and perspectives in from the painting, and altering the naturalistic colors in avoid any detail that would make the image real. These involved the artist exaggerating, simplifying or applying a new style, and application of unnatural colors to indicate that the images were not real by themselves but were standing in for a certain perspectives.1 However, The Kiss painting did not amuse Prxybyszewski due to the distortion of images to hide reality and facilitate symbolization of ideas. As such, the The kiss" is repulsive, and that it resembles "liquefied flesh.” Therefore, Munch’s paintings were visual messages that reflected issues in the society, and which expressed his feelings concerning issues affecting him on a daily basis, suggesting that any literal definition of these paintings lost the actual messages that Munch expressed. Prxybyszewski when referring to Munch’s paintings as liquefied flesh and repulsive was reacting to the disorder involved in the symbolism approach, in communicating ideas and perspectives through images. As Prelinger explains, the symbolic artist had a view of communicating with images, but the images were not to have any realistic resemblance so as not to blur the message communicated.2 As a result, the artist embraced a tendency to change the images used by simplifying them, exaggerating or distorting the style of painting to ensure the images only communicated the intended message. In other words, symbolism artists such as Munch had a tendency of imposing their dominion on the reality to ensure the reality was their servant and not the artists acting as the servant of reality.3 As Prelinger explained, symbolism in this approach only had regard for thoughts and moods and employed reality as symbol. In this case, Prxybyszewski was referring to this alteration in images. In painting “the kiss,” the two images while kissing are closely fused and are embedded as two people with one head. “On the rosy frontier, the inner and outer parts of the man meet and exchange their emancipations while thousands of sensitive nerves give and receive the impressions received from the senses.”4 Between man and the women, space has been lost and has merged their heads together forming the symbol of a knotty tree, which makes the lovers seem like to ancient trees.5 The image portrays the togetherness that results from burning passion between a man and a woman such that there is no distance between them as they explore fantasy. Prxybyszewski laments, “….but the entire passion of the kiss, the horrible power of sexuality, painfully yearning longing the disappearance of the consciousness of the ego…. – all this is so honestly experienced that we can accept the repulsive-unusual.”6 Prxybyszewski in this remark portrays the power passion and live experienced between a man and woman such that they were completely merged to one another and with all their consciousness lost. In other words, the repulsive nature of this condition in the manner in which such strong emotions overcome man and a woman leading to them to lose all the senses, implying the extent to which immorality was experienced in the society the society. Prxybyszewski fears the power of sexuality and terms it as a horrible. For instance the repulsive nature of the image was that as the light coloured arm of the female penetrated the black mass of the male and vice versa,7 it simplifies the power in which love and passion devoirs the two such that they lost any identity as they become one body mass. The conflict between Munch and Prxybyszewski was that the latter was a medical professional who liked to express herself in terms of “the art physiology metaphor” and viewed art in a physiological perspective,8 while Munch used symbolism art to express himself and the issues in the society. Despite Prxybyszewski’s comments, one of the artists who seemed to have fallen in love and liked the painting was Mantegazza. In analysing the image, The kiss physiologically, Mantegazza lamented that “ the lips belong to the skin and also to the viscera… then it is a true kiss, a perfect miss; perhaps the most beautiful experience of love, which draws the woman and the man together to experience the richness of life.”9 In this explanation, Mantegazza portrayed his fascination with the painting, explaining how the painting illuminated the sharing of passion between a man and a woman and how these contribute to the nature of love. Therefore, Munch found an ally in Mantegazza. However, Prxybyszewski had a soft spot for Munch in that in his book, Psychologie des Individuums,10 Prxybyszewski discusses Nietzsche genius and was sympathetic to Munch’s art as he interpreted Munch’s work and individualism to form an organic totality.11 Moreover, Jaeger was another proponent of Munch who believed that celibacy was harmful and was fascinated by Munch’s The kiss, an image that portrayed sexual passion and how they devour a man and woman to become one. Eggum was also fascinated by Munch’s painting and had even related the vampire to the house of prostitution that Munch used to visit.12 Considering the house of prostitution could be likened to a house of burning passion as The Kiss illustrated, when Eggum suggested that Munch’s painting by capturing this sentiment reflect reality. Moreover, Strindberg perceived The Kiss as scary and threatening and related the image to the vampirism of a woman, which he feared in his entire life. Munch’s paintings do not conform to one artistic themes and style. In other words, unlike The kiss, which Prxybyszewski likened to liquid flesh, there are numerous Munch’s paintings that are different and which have ensured proper use of form and unity, resulting in definite shapes with clear boundaries. In fact, Warwick observed that while Munch’s earlier work was classified under naturalism,13 based on the use of symbolism to comment about the society, Munch later embraced the expressionistic style. For instance, in The kiss, Munch was critical of the issues about love and sexuality which were prevalent in the society. In fact, Munch visited prostitute houses several times and hence was aware of the extent to which body passion influenced the society and individuals, with men being the most victims. As the kiss painting shows, the image portrays vampires where one element in the image seems to swallow the larger one; these were Strindberg’s worries and concerns. In other words, women were treated as vampires that swallow men due to their ability to arouse passion and sexual desires in men, trapping them with this passion in the society. This was clearly illustrated by Mantegazza in his physiological analysis of Munch’s painting The Kiss. The image was, therefore, under the naturalism style, in that it commented on what exactly happens in the society. Bassie explains that Munch was the greatest inspiration to expressionist artists, an artist’s style used to express reality in artistic.14 The art of expressionism involved expressing emotions and attitudes,15 an artistic style that Munch extensively employed away from the symbolism art, his initial style of art. For instance in the image The Sick Child, Munch expresses emotions that characterize the painting in relation to the g passed. Unlike his earlier images such as The Kiss that lacked form and looked like “liquid flesh” due to the high degree of flow involved, The Sick Child is rather different. The forms are more definite, though due to heavy use of colour, the contrast is very high between the dark and light shades resulting in a blurred image. The image of the girl on the bed with another figure who seems to weep besides the bed conveys grief and pain. The child seems unconscious, as there is not effect to indicate communication between the two figures, which expounds the pain communicated. Considering that Munch painted this image at the age of 22 representing a real case when his sister was sick and dying from tuberculosis,16 Munch was instrumental in devising a new way to express emotions in an artistic way, which makes him an important figure in expressionism artistic style. Similar to the Kiss that Munch painted several times, and in different materials, the sick child was painted six times in the course of Munch’s life to express the intensity of grief that Munch experienced watching his sister almost dying. From the two images, Munch extensively repeated his paintings sometimes varying the style and materials of painting as in The kiss to stress his ideas and feelings. The style of repeating his work on different media several times,17 illustrated that Munch preferred to communicate artistically than communicating verbally; he let his image talk for him especially under expressionism where Munch narrated of the many instances of grief that befell him in life through images. A common aspect in all Munch’s paintings is the use of wavy lines and heavy usage of colour to achieve high contrasting figures. Though Munch mixed the liquid flesh style in images such as The Kiss, Scream and uses clear forms in some of the images, heavy lines seem to portray dynamism and conflict in images. All of his images seem to flow out of the space and make use of extensive wave lines, which indicate the aspect of dynamism and conflict in life. Wavy lines illustrate how Munch encountered and perceived many conflicting real life experiences and the aspect of life, a concept that the fluidity of these images illustrated. The distortion of images is an illustration of the distorted views of Munch’s life, which forced him to live a unique and painful life. For instance, Munch did not marry in accordance with social expectations. Moreover, when Munch went to a prostitute house he immediately left as the prostitute started to arouse the passion in him. In addition, his perception on women is an illustration of a disturbed perception in life, which influenced his paintings under realism and symbolism. Moreover, considering the grief that Munch had undergone in life, the wavy lines characterizing his paintings are an indication of this conflict. Munch sought to convey meaning from his sufferings in the family, and the meaning of social trends that characterised the society, such as the power of a woman to enslave a man through her passion. Therefore, Munch used different approaches to understand and communicate issues in the society through his artistic work. The liquefied flesh, as Prxybyszewski remarked, was because of lack of form, an artistic approach under symbolism art that sought to distract the image from a real image in ensuring the image represented an idea or perspective. Munch’s paintings such as the kiss and he Scream used this approach. However, Munch’s paintings were not extensively without form. Munch changed his artistic style to impressionism after afterwards, resulting in images with form and unity. All the same, all his paintings, involve heavy use of colour and use of wavy lines with the high contrast blurring the painting background. This may be taken to illustrate the conflict in Munch’s life, which he communicated through paintings. Bibliography Bassie, Ashley. Expressionism. NY: Parkstone Press, 2008. Cordulack, S. Wood and Munch, Edvard. Edvard Munch and the Physiology of Symbolism. Cranbury, NJ: Associated university Press, 2002 Prelinger, Elizabeth. Edvard Munch: Master prints. NY: Prestel, 2010. Warick, Edvard Munch: A Study of Loss, Grief and Creativity. https://www.msu.edu/course/ha/446/panter.htm West, C. Mara. Edvard Munch’s To the Forest: Nature as Medium and Metaphor, Masters Thesis, University of California, Chapel Hill, 2007 Przybyszewski, Stanislaw. The Work of Edvard Munch: Four Essays. Berlin: S. Fischer, 1894 Clark, Jay. “Becoming Edvard Munch, Influence, Anxiety and Myth.” Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide, 8(2) (2009). DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5860/CHOICE.47-0085 Read More