\paperw19995 \margr0\margl0 \plain \fs20 \f1 Norwegian painter and engraver. \par
Edvard MunchÆs childhood was marred by the tragic deaths of his mother and sister, whi
ch left a deep mark on his feelings toward existence. These psychological factors only served to increase the communality of interests between Munch and the Scandinavian literary world, dominated by the playwrights Ibsen and Strindberg. Thus the artist b
ecame a leading figure in European Symbolist circles, where madness was treated as an experimental patient and people wrote ôin the fuming blood of human beings.ö\par
He was trained at the Royal School of Drawing in Oslo and at the same time came into c
ontact with the naturalistic painter Fritz Thaulow, a man of progressive and humanitarian ideals, and the anarchist writer Hans Jaeger. His cultural horizons were broadened by frequent visits to Paris and Berlin, which the artist alternated with long sta
ys in Norway throughout his life. He put aside the naturalism of his early paintings as a consequence of the influence of French art. In particular, he adopted the large areas of color with allusive resonance used by Paul Gauguin, though MunchÆs painting
differs from the latterÆs in its personal sense of existential \i angst\i0 (cf. \i The Scream\i0 , 1893, Oslo, Nasjonalgalleriet; \i Puberty\i0 , 1895, Oslo, Nasjonalgalleriet). The undulating, surging lines of his painting are those of art nouveau, bu
t Munch uses them to create an intensity and an expressive force that make him one of the principal forerunners of Expressionism, along with Vincent van Gogh.
