Edvard Munch, The Sun, 1910-1911 by Atelier Liesjes

About "Edvard Munch, The Sun, 1910-1911"

by Atelier Liesjes

About the artwork

The Sun is symmetrically structured. Munch extended the sun image in this painting from a partial to an embracing role, having first proposed a Nietzschean Mountain of Man that rose toward a sun-covered sky. Upon further reflection, and in compliance with advice from friends, he abandoned the problematical symbol to retain the sun image in pure, intense, and masculine dominance.
The barbs and shafts of light have affinities with German Expressionism of a different kind than Der Brucker; the more abstract and universal language of Wassily Kandinsky in the Munich Der Blaue Reiter. Hodler's Alpine visions are also evoked by the symmetry and centrality. Like Kandinsky, Munch is here both romantic and avant-garde, and the sun, indeed, is God.
Illuminated by the sunrays are the water of the ocean, the bare rocks of a Northern landscape, and a slim strip of verdant green that separated land and sea. A clean, straight horizon line divides the waters from sky. The great sun is all-pervasive, shinning from the heavens upon land and sea, its rays reaching out to all eternity. Inhuman itself, it is the source of all life.
Edvard Munch (Løten (Hedmark), 12 December 1863 - Ekely near Oslo, 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter. He was the great foreman of expressionism. Initially, he was influenced by Impressionism and Symbolism. His works were mainly post-impressionist, but also contributed a lot to expressionism. Munch mainly focused on depicting human emotions, fears and uncertain