Munch: In His Own Words [Paperback]

Poul Erik Tojner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2003

An exploration of the life and art of Edvard Munch, drawing on the artist's copious journal entries, notes, letters, literary exercises and photographs to present an approach to understanding one of the most compelling Expressionist painters. Like many artists, Munch did not limit himself to visual expression. For much of his career, he wrote almost as much as he painted, and many of his major art works began as literary sketches. However, as this volume makes clear, Munch did not write to explain his art, but as an extension of it. Poul Erik Tojner's analysis of Munch's writings, many of which have been preserved in the Munch Museum in Oslo, reveals the deep connection between writing and painting in Munch's life. Organized by themes, this volume presents reproductions of paintings, prints and journal excerpts as they deepen our understanding of this compelling artist and provide clues to the themes he returned to again and again.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Director of the well-known Louisiana Museum of Modern Art outside Copenhagen, Danish art and architecture critic Tojner (Knud Holscher: Architect and Industrial Designer) has assembled a selection of texts by Norwegian modernist Edvard Munch (1863-1944), whose most famous work is The Scream. Visually, the book is up to Prestel's usual standard, with images of Munch's tortured men and women coming through sharply and clearly. But while chapters like "Munch and His Own Words," "The Nature of Art, and that of the Artist," and "Munch and Other People" have helpful short prefaces by Tojner, they present insurmountable problems that should make any librarian or art fan think twice. The translators, barely credited in minuscule print on the Larsen and Munch travel round Europe together or on each other's tail" is just one example of poor idiom control. The meaning of Tojner pronouncements like "When Munch paints houses, they have faces; when he paints people, their bodies are tattooed with points of contact with the surrounding world" seems hopelessly obscure. And there are clumsy and facile paradoxes that seem at least partly the author's doing, as when Munch is characterized as painting his subjects "at exactly the right moment, capturing a kind of taciturn eloquence." Munch was an ill-tempered misanthrope whose writings are unlikely to attract the kind of sympathy inspired by Van Gogh's letters, but when the ever-anguished artist is allowed to speak for himself, the results can have a certain nasty, brusque horse sense, such as this discussion with a country neighbor: " `Why don't you paint small paintings that can be sold, like everybody else,' asks my milkman. Look after your cows, I said. You know something about that."

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (1863-1944), considered one of the leading practitioners of Expressionism, is here presented in the context of his writings and personal experiences. Tmjner, an author and current director of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, traces Munch's artistic development through the examination of his personal papers, including sketches, diaries, and letters that are here translated into English for the first time. These writings also show how Munch was affected by the early loss of his mother, his love affairs, and his interaction with friends and fellow artists, as well as by the literary trends and philosophy of pre-World War I Europe. This highly personal approach allows us to see the forces at work on Munch and how they were expressed in his art. This beautifully produced and well-illustrated book belongs in most art libraries. Martin Chasin, Adult Inst., Bridgeport, CT
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Prestel Publishing (March 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3791328832
• ISBN-13: 978-3791328836
• Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 8.8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,184,647 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #11 in Books > Arts & Photography > Schools, Periods & Styles > Expressionism

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you want to know Munch, January 14, 2004

By 

Laura Morledge "www.lauramarieanderson.com" (Montana USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Munch: In His Own Words (Paperback)

I could not put this book down and when I finished, I felt as though I finally had some insight into Munch as a person as well as an artist. If you would like to have a better understanding of both the man and his paintings this book is for you.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Munch, the monastic, June 1, 2006

By 

wiredweird "wiredweird" (Earth, or somewhere nearby) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Munch: In His Own Words (Paperback)

Edvard Munch painted "The Scream." (BTW, his name is said like "monk", not like "bunch.") That was just one work from a long and dedicated life in art, and arguably not his defining work. Look at his "Sick Child" (p.15), and at the mother. Does she really have anything more in her than the Screamer, except just that little more strength a woman has than a man does? Only quietly enough for others to bear?

I never thought much of Munch until I saw a display of his graphic work, largely woodcuts and some lithos. Then, I realized just how literal his painting style is. "As long as cameras can not be used in Hell or in Heaven, painters have no fear of competition." His paintings, and even more his prints, are about heaven and hell. Together, in the same picture, as his fevered mind saw them.

Many of his painted and graphic works center on two monopoles: light and dark. Become aware of this frequent pattern, and you'll have almost the visual experience of seeing a magnetic field. His visual field contains a North and South pole, a source and a sink, a plus and a minus. In those, composition consists of defining the two, filling the space between the two, and emptying the space around the two. I recommend his work most highly to any student, at any level, who wants to learn composition by being kicked in the gut with it. Much of Munch's work is about stark, polar power.

He also eliminates the placement of figure and ground, and creates the dichotomy of figure and ground. Half or more of his paintings show it: that aura emanating from the human being that sets it off from the material world around it. The background has no chance to interact with that force of person that emanates from each figure, so there must be a buffer zone between them. That, I think, explains the brushwork halo around so many of his human renderings: an attempt to define their visual limit, at the expense of any relationship to the world around them.

Munch is good, if emotional truth means more to you than optical literality. He's also hard to take, and becomes harder to take as you learn more. I really think he put it all out there for us to see, whether or not we can take it all in.

//wiredweird

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Munch more than a scream..., May 5, 2007

By 

Mark Nadja "Literary Outlaw, author *Hardcore... (New York City) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: Munch: In His Own Words (Paperback)

*Munch In His Own Words* is worth five stars just for the generous reproductions of the paintings, drawings, lithographs, and woodcuts that illustrate the text, as well as the selection of photographs taken by/and of Munch himself. These reproductions give one an idea of the stunning range and variety of Munch's complete life work, which goes well beyond his reputation primarily as the guy who painted `The Scream.' Nevertheless, in spite of this variety, one can still trace the red thread that runs through virtually everything he ever produced in his long career: a violently passionate and often antagonistic engagement with life and the world around him.

So it is that the actual text of *Munch In His Own Words* can only be a bonus--and in this book we get extracts from Munch's personal journals and letters that offer first-hand insights into his complex psyche from which his extraordinary art emerged. Some of these texts are brilliant evocations of the artist's role as rebel and savior, others repetitive and obsessive, still others read like the ravings of a paranoid schizophrenic. Not having access to the complete texts, one wonders if they might have been edited and selected with an eye to a little more variety and little less repetition, but it's hard to complain. Munch is almost as explosive and idiosyncratic a writer as he is a painter and, on the whole, the texts provide a rewarding counterpoint and context to the art.

Another bonus is the introduction and chapter openings by the book's editor Poul Erik Tojner. Sometimes elliptical to the point of incomprehensibility, studded with fancifully pretentious interpretations, Tojner does manage to provide some genuinely enlightening and provocative observations, perhaps none moreso than his suggestion that one can find striking parallels between the work of Munch and--of all people--Andy Warhol! Outrageous at first--and yet Tojner makes a wholly compelling and convincing argument for this unlikeliest of pairings.

A rich and compulsively readable--not to mention eye-catching--volume, *Munch In His Own Words* is a great overall look at an artist who painted, in his own words, the only way he knew how: with his heart's blood.