The Scream

Anthony Madison
Edvard Munch, The Scream,  1893
By ANTHONY MADISON

Edvard Munch's The Scream has been one of the most iconic painting ever created in modern art history. It has provided inspiration for the 1996 slasher movie called "Scream" and the cover for the 1990 movie "Home Alone."

The colors of the painting give a contrast between the orange and red colors in the sky with the dark blue of the water. The reflection of the sky in the water on the left hand side of the painting near the top mixes the two colors well.

Towards the end of the 18th century, artists began expressing their inner emotions and feelings through their work. Usually, artists would paint to display their painting abilities to show how good they were. As this new era of painting came about, Munch changed up his style a bit. Munch had issues with anxiety which he chose to express with this piece instead of focusing on artistic skill.
  • 7:00 AM

Amor and Psyche

Alex McDonald
Edvard Munch, Amor and Psyche, 1907
Call Munch’s Amor and Psyche a representation of myth without the myth. Amor, more commonly known as Cupid, lacks any sense of godliness. He has no wings, no bow, and no arrow. Munch has also taken Psyche’s astounding beauty that gave her the ability to seduce a god. She merely looks tired and deformed.

Munch attacks his subject matter in an entirely different way than all other painters our class has examined this year. His post-impressionism seeks to represent more abstract ideas than the Renaissance styles. These painters focused on literal representation and their symbolism extended only so far as to include halos and chimeras. Now, you may say I am overlooking very important and big exceptions, but guess what? This is my blog post, and I am tired of looking at angels, saints, and Jesus. Now, you know your class has looked at way too many religious paintings when the Catholic kid says something like this. So buckle up and ride along with my gross, untruthful generalization. I miss my Munch, and I want him back for a day.

Metamorphoses describes the tale of Psyche and Cupid as thus. A princess named Psyche possesses such beauty that the goddess Venus becomes jealous. So she sends her son Cupid down to take care of the problem. Cupid’s mission is simple: make Psyche fall in love with the ugliest dude he can find. There’s only one problem. Cupid has kind of a soft spot for beautiful princesses. So instead he secretly marries Psyche, but does not allow her to know his true identity. Henceforth, Cupid only visits her in the dead of night. Finally, she gets fed up with this arrangement and lights a lamp. She then discovers Cupid’s godhood. Needless to say this causes some complications for their relationship, but it all works out in the end.

I’d call this a rather peachy story, but Munch rejects that interpretation. Instead he plays with the idea of darkness and the fragile structure of the mind within these godlike figures. Notice the heavy, black brush strokes over Amor. These are prison bars. They are on Psyche’s face as well. The background has similar brush strokes, but they are white. I imagine the whiteness represents Psyche’s turning on of the light. The light then begins to illuminate the two figures. It has reached all of Psyche’s body and Amor’s shoulders. In the myth, Psyche discovers Cupid’s godliness. In Munch’s painting, she discovers a lonely, naked man. Also, the beauty Psyche supposedly possesses does not seem apparent. She looks blurred and delicate. These two bigger than life figures are really fleeting ideas that can be repressed. Amor, or love, and Psyche, the mind, are illogical. Munch did not want these things in his life, along with God. I believe I have already written a blog post talking about Munch’s atheism, but to reiterate Munch thought the world too ugly of a place to be created by a perfect all-knowing entity. There are only people, and they create myths in order to explain the things they cannot understand, such as the mind and emotions. However in Munch’s time, Freud had dissected the mind. Myths were no longer needed and to Munch, neither was love or rationality.

  • 7:00 AM

The Swallows

Aaron Dupuis
Edouard Manet, The Swallows, 1873
I'm thankful for the countryside. For any day that I can lie lazily lounging in the open air, as the wind rushes through fields of Kansas blue stem. I am thankful for the rusty-palette and quiet splendor of autumn, the biting chill of winter on my cheeks, the budding beauty of spring, the sweat of summer nights. I am thankful for the hot July night, two years back, when I saw thousands of fireflies flicker between the trees, like the willow-the-wisps of folklore, so that the night sky and the woods around became as one. For the afternoon I spent at the pumpkin patch on Holmes with my sister, laughing and racing through the corn maze, willingly losing ourselves in the winding aisles of crop. For the days before my license, when Michael, Adam, Will, Deko, Chris, and I would trek for an hour just to waste the day at the park or wander the aisles of Price Chopper. The nights that we would steal out of our homes to play Manhunt.

And with these last two, I've touched upon something that I had not considered when I set out writing this post: That these moments stand out because they are shared. I've enjoyed my share of lonely days wandering the hills and creek beds near my grandparents' home, and I cherish those evenings of self discovery. But those shared moments of glory - whether the wonder was lost on my company or not - are those that truly shine.

Just two weeks ago, Max and I fixed up bikes in the driveway of his new home, desperate to set off in search of adventure in the last hours of sunlight. Our repairs made, we mounted up and raced through his neighborhood, up sidewalks and down asphalt roads, past joggers and couples and children playing in yards. In that moment we were free. We smiled like we hadn't since the year began.

  • 7:00 AM

Puberty

Aaron Dupuis
Munch, Puberty, 1893
Midway on our life's journey, I found myself
In dark woods, the right road lost. To tell 
About these woods is hard - so tangled and rough
And savage that thinking of it now, I feel
The old fear stirring: death is hardly more bitter.
 - Inferno, Dante, Canto I

I don't envy Dante for going through his mid-life crisis in 14th century Italy. Carrying the weight of depression, regret, and doubt before the invention of motorcycles, hair restoration, and dating services sounds like Hell on earth. The poor guy's true love died, and he'd only ever seen her twice. His political party had lost power, and his wife nagged him nightly about leaving the chamber pot lid up. A modern poet would have taken to the bottle, but whiskey hadn't hit the shelves in Italy just yet. Instead, Dante put pen to parchment and scrawled out one of the greatest poetry epics known to man, The Divine Comedy. His cantos cast his enemies into hell, placed his beloved Beatrice in heaven, gave him Virgil as a spiritual guide, and secured his place in history as il Somma Poeta.

Admittedly, I have no experience on which to base my feelings on Dante's situation. I'm a seventeen year old kid cracking jokes about people of an age more than twice my own. In some way, I am in no position to muse about the pains of growing old, but I have wandered through dark woods of my own. I suppose I'm lost in some right now. 

Each night when my head hits the pillow I sigh, and reflect, and many nights I reach the same conclusions: I am happy, but not fulfilled. I am busy, but not productive. I care deeply, but do not act. I can't decide whether I'm waiting for things to fix themselves, or for Cormac McCarthy to float through my window and show me the right road (preferably not the one he wrote about). The only thing I'm certain of is that the latter won't happen. And it shouldn't. I'm not alone in these woods. Though the brush and bramble may block my view, I know that there are others, and that many deserve their guide's attention more. 

  • 11:14 PM

The Flight into Egypt

Adam Elsheimer
Elsheimer, The Flight into Egypt, 1609
And following its path, we took no care
To rest, but climbed: he first, then I--so far,
Through a round aperture I saw appear
Some of the beautiful things that Heaven bears,
Where we came forth, and once more saw the stars. 
- Inferno, Dante, Canto XXXIV, 136-40

Adam Elsheimer, a German artist, created his famous The Flight into Egypt in 1609 in Rome. The painting pictures the Holy family makes its way through a dim landscape below an expanse of starry sky. The moon, the torch held by Joseph, and the campfire provide the three main sources of light. The river bank and the outline of heavily dense trees form a diagonal across the picture. It echoes with the milky river, a symbol often believed to be the path to Heaven. The Holy family walks towards the left to where the campfire  is located and to where the milky river leads upwards, implying to the audience that a shelter and a auspicious future await them.

Just like the King Herod is after the Holy family, the horrible demonstration of Hell scares Dante away. Coincidently, the starry sky is always in the background. In addition, Dante's Purgatorio and his Paradiso, like the Inferno, end with the word stars.

I frequently pictured Dante in my head as the screaming man painted by Edvard Munch. I try to think what his face looks like when he finally gets out of the bloody Hell. I was expecting Dante would spend another Canto to depict the gorgeous landscape above the ground, and his ecstatic mood towards the ravishing view of man's world. But he did not. No more views are mentioned but the stars, and no more words are said but, "the beautiful things that Heaven bears." Short, but powerful. After witnessing scores of horrendous tortures in Hell,  Dante says that above the starry sky, Heaven never abandons you; and only can the mighty God create such a view of silence, peace and solemnity.

  • 7:00 AM

Gentlemen's Club - Olympia

1863
Gentlemen's Club
Courtesans and Seductresses Depicted in Art
Curated by Gabbi Fenaroli
Édouard Manet, Olympia, 1863 
“So sweet and delicious do I become,
when I am in bed with a man
who, I sense, loves and enjoys me,
that the pleasure I bring excels all delight,
so the knot of love, however tight
it seemed before, is tied tighter still.”
- Veronica Franco

Gazing into the eyes of Manet’s Olympia, it becomes difficult to look away. The private moment Manet has created for the viewer does not go unnoticed. What shocked the masses at the 1865 Paris Salon was not her bare breasts and exposed body. They took offense to her provocative gaze, and the blatant fact that she was a courtesan. Some items pointing to her profession include the orchid in her hair, the black ribbon that contrasts her pale flesh, and the playful slipper falling of her foot. What sets Olympia apart from other paintings featuring a bare model, is that she is attainable. She exists in modern culture.

Paintings record history and depict events occurring in society, and prostitution was not a piece of history Parisians wanted recorded. In contrast with the painting that inspired Olympia, Sleeping Venus by Giorgione, Olympia appears more boyish than Venus.

Olympia undermines the female bargaining power of sex, since her job trades pleasure for money. Olympia threatens women’s power, especially in 19th-century Paris, because of what she offers to men - no strings attached, no guilt involved.

  • 8:00 AM

Art for the Private Viewer - Death of Marat

Death of Marat
Art for the Private Viewer
The Broad Usage of Sexual Figures in Art
Curated by Sree Balusu

Edvard Munch, Death of Marat, 1907
On July 13, 1793, Jean-Paul Marat was murdered by Charlotte Corday, a woman who opposed his political propaganda and decided to act.

There is apparent nudity in this painting, and Munch's use of a sexual theme in which to depict this scene creates both a powerful symbolism of this murder.

Similar to David's Cupid and Psyche, Charlotte Corday is white in color, which seems to reference purity. This could allude to her clarity and her vision. She believed in ridding the country of the unjustified hate and political manipulation that Marat had created.

It is important to note the placement of blood in this painting. There is a large blot of blood stained on the bed where Marat lies dead, which signifies the blood from the wound where Corday stabbed him. However, there is also blood on the very bottom of Corday's legs. It looks as though Corday and Marat have just finished sexual intercourse and that Corday has given birth to the murder.

Corday and Marat's sexual intercourse is a physical union that symbolizes the historical union of these two figures. Without Marat's death, Corday would not have become a famous/infamous historical figure. Without Corday's killing him, Marat would not have become renowned as a saint through the work of Jacques-Louis David, who forever changed Marat's image.

Because of David's painting, Marat became publicized as a martyr for supporters of his political party (which explains Munch's use of a crucifixion pose to depict Marat on his bed). Through the lens of history, Corday and Marat are inseparable, which is symbolized by the proximity of Corday and Marat's right hands.

Through the concepts of physical union and reproduction, Edvard Munch accurately depicts both Corday and Marat's place in history along with what they are remembered by -- the murder, which is effectively their child.

  • 5:14 PM

Mother Liberty and the Seducer - Berthe Morisot with Veil

Alex McDonald
Berthe Morisot with Veil
Mother Liberty and the Seducer
Curated by Alex McDonald

Curator's Note: The Mother Liberty and Seducer story arc has come to a close. I now leave you with two stories of thematic importance.

Manet’s brush pushes against the canvas. Colors blend. Shapes take form. Sweat dribbles down the artist’s brow. He works with a mission.

We are going to get your voice heard, Berthe, he promises. There are worse artists out there prospering. Why should you have to starve because of your sex?
            
Manet hears a muffled reply.

Speak up, darling. I can’t hear you.

He does not make out the next gurgled cries.

Berthe, this isn’t going to work if you can’t sit still.

Manet’s portrait stands close to completion. He hopes for his painting to attract attention to his suffering sister in law’s art career. A woman can’t make it anywhere in the world, Manet tells himself. She needs his help. If he can show the world through his art that Morisot demands the critics' attention, she can make it big. Like him. His talent will be the tool she uses to foster her own.
          
I am almost done. I just need to complete the mouth.
A raspy croak sounds from the other side of the canvas. Manet doesn’t look up.

Be quiet, I don’t want to get this wrong. Manet looks up and drops his brush in shock.

Morisot’s mouth is sewed shut. Her eyes stare at Manet with an accusing gaze. A gaze that says all the words Morisot’s mouth cannot say.
  • 12:00 AM

Mother Liberty and the Seducer - Woman in Three Stages

Alex McDonald
Woman in Three Stages, Edvard Munch, 1895
Woman in Three Stages
Mother Liberty and the Seducer
Curated by Alex McDonald

Curator's Note: This is the fourth installment in a series of blog posts where I have presented short fiction based off the paintings in my collection. If, please go read my three prior posts. Thank you.

The Woman’s revolution succeeds and her image becomes a symbol, a rallying cry for all the abused.

Decades later, a young Girl sees the woman’s image and wonders how can a woman hold such respect? She even has her chest bare. All she has to offer, out in the open for all to see. And they still admire her?

The Girl bites her lip. She is familiar with a different painting, Edvard Munch’s Woman in Three Stages.

The Girl dreams of a wedding on a beach. Her dress will be white like every other bride’s. And on the wedding night she will lie naked before her husband. Nothing will be held back because he wants it all. She will smile and enjoy it.
But after the romance ends, she will cover her breasts and become an old woman.
The Devil smells his chance and laughs. Where is your husband? He isn’t even in the picture.

Well… He’s….

He never was. You’d do this even if you never found a husband.  Men are not the ones dictating this cycle. Women are. Marriage, sex, death. That’s all you’re good for.

But Mother Liberty? She broke the cycle. Look at her!

Are you like her? Do you flash your chest around for all to rally behind? What have you inspired?

Nothing.

The Devil smiles. And what are you gonna do about it?

The Girl locks eyes with the Devil. Everything.

The Girl spits at Munch’s painting. And Mother Liberty. She doesn’t need others telling her how to live. She will make her own decisions.
  • 12:00 AM

Art is Motion - Stag at Sharkey's

1909
George Bellows, Stag at Sharkey's, 1909
We're at the halfway point now in our exploration of the motion of art. At this time I'd like to say that I struggled with the exact subject of this collection for a good long while. The idea came to me as I poured over the text book, preparing for a dreaded test that never reared its ugly head. As I studied up on my 20th century art, I spotted Bird in Space, and immediately began to plan out an elaborate series on Weightlessness. While that may have been a fun experiment, I felt increasingly limited by the specificity. Motion allows for so much more wiggle room.

Just for the sake of demonstration, let's bring gender into the discussion. What defines movements as inherently masculine or feminine? As cool as George Bellow's Stag at Sharkey's may be, it also happens to serve as a prime example of the distinction in society and art made between the two sexes. Up in the ring, two muscular ferocious men duke it out for glory as anxious gamblers and sports enthusiasts look on,  savoring every blow traded between the two men. The painting practically swings on it's mounting with the final collision between the unstoppable force, and the immovable object, their muscles tightened, their veins popping. It is no surprise that a painting depicting boxing in 1909 lacks a single woman in the mix. However, if the crowd and ring were peeled away, the gloves taken, and features removed from the remaining figures, the genderless forms would still appear to most to carry an air of masculinity.

The problem stems from an association with certain motions and poses with gender. Warrior paintings such as Antonio Canova's Theseus Fighting the Centaur and Stag at Sharkey's depict strong male characters lashing out violently, the beauty of the pieces lying in their brutality. If someone walked up to me and said, "Name the two baddest dudes you know from Art History," I'd immediately jump to those works, but just about anyone could come up with some heroic male figure. But replace "dudes" with "dudettes" and suddenly you've reached an impasse.

 You see, we associate females and art with Mona Lisa and The Birth of Venus, pretty faces that occasionally serve as centerpieces to the action about them. For this reason I hail the subverting force of works such as Munch's Death of Marat and Gentileschi's Judith and Holofernes, which place the power in the hands of the women, and challenge gender norms, as did the women they depict.

  • 12:00 AM

Anxiety

Anxiety

Munch, Edvard, Anxiety, 1863-1944 
Munch’s collection of Anxiety paintings, uses the same haunting faces of its characters, draws out a feeling of hopelessness and blank expression from its audiences. I admire Munch’s work in this collection because the unique landscapes and disfigured forms accurately reveal the “anxiety” that the paintings are known for. Of the collection, my favorite work is “Anxiety.”


The fiery colors of the background have no warmth behind the distressed faces, making it seem like a eternally regressing background. The painting clearly reveals Munch’s agoraphobia, through the muted and hopeless expressions of the people. Despite their obvious despair, Munch implies that the characters continue to walk forward, oblivious to anything but their living hell.  


The cool colors and striking contrast in outlines and shading that Munch uses, further pushes his subjects forward, creating a progressive motion that pushes them over the bridge. All his subjects are practically faceless, except for the woman in the foreground who is portrayed with both hands in a strangling motion around her own neck.

The expressions almost seem robotic and inhuman. Uniform motion only adds to the horror of this painting. The swirling colors of the background create a vortex that traps the audience within Munch’s sense of panic that the woman clearly expresses.

  • 12:00 AM

Melancholy

Edvard Munch

Edvard Munch, Melancholy, 1891
Melancholy by Edvard Munch does not refer to one particular work or medium. It began as a pastel drawing in 1891, in 1892 Munch painted several versions and added “Yellow Boat” to the title, and in 1896 he created a woodcarving. These works were set in Asgårdstrand, Norway, where Munch spent most of his summers between 1889 and 1906. The main figure is said to represent writer Jappe Nielsen, who suffered for his hopeless love of Oda Krohg. She is pictured with her newly-married husband, Christian, on the pier. Ironically enough Christian Krohg, Norway’s leading artist at the time, published an article giving the painted version much praise and attention.

I enjoy the pastel sketch the most of the three mediums because I believe that Munch’s ability to portray desperation and melancholy feeling touches the surface of emotion, but both leaves freedom for and encouragingly accepts the honest passionate reaction of the viewer. Jappe’s figure is the most finished portion of the work. Behind him, his memories begin as the canvas unfolds into color and dimension. A darker line extending from the tip of his nose, across the bay and toward the figures seem to connect the two. The characters of his lost love and her new husband seem too painful to remember, thus are barely touched. As is the ocean, which opens up a plethora of opportunities for Oda to sail away and never return.

I enjoy this painting for its external simplicity as well as its complexity of line and movement. The seemingly unfinished canvas leaves a plethora of emotional opportunities for viewers that all revolve around the melancholy Jappe.
  • 12:00 AM