Painting

Inger in Black and Violet

Artist: Edvard Munch
Creation date: 1892

On display: Room 060 The Collection Exhibition - Edvard Munch

About

In the portrait of Edvard Munch’s sister Inger we see a young woman standing face on, erect and monumental. Her expression is controlled yet guarded, her posture constrained, her gaze thoughtful and introverted. Her hands are folded and her hair is tied back away from her pale face. The impression of chaste modesty is reinforced by the high black collar of her dress, tightly clasping her neck.

Inger Munch stands in front of a cool blue-grey wall that seems to form a vacuum around her, thus underlining the impression of isolation. At the same time the colour of the floor on which she is standing is warm and earthy. This surprising colour contrast creates a complex statement that alternates between the ethereal and the earthbound.

Edvard Munch is well known for the psychological depth he gives to personal characteristics. This portrait of his sister is one of his first monumental full-length portraits. Here he follows a long art historical tradition. In his portraits, Munch concentrates on the essential element of the model. He often places his figures against empty or only very sparsely furnished rooms, allowing their personality to be conveyed by their posture, eyes, face and hands, together with the expressive qualities of the colours employed.

This picture was purchased for the National Gallery in 1899.

Edvard Munch bestandskatalog
The subject here is Munch's five-year younger sister Inger (1868--1952). As in the portrait of 1884 (The National Museum, NG.M.01862), Inger is wearing a dress with a buttoned bodice. In the new picture, however, the realism and the details are toned down in favour of a simpler, decorative idiom that emphasises colours, tones and an overall, monumental unity. With its floor-length skirt, high collar, long sleeves and muted colours, the dress is a characteristic example of contemporary bourgeois fashion. The figure is displaced slightly to one side, and the two-part background fills much of the canvas. The composition is dominated by repeated ovals; from the neck brooch and the clasped hands, to the head and the body contours. The meditative aura, produced by the reliance on simple, repeated forms and the dominant bluish tone, links the work to the romantic mood painting of the 1890s in the Nordic countries.

Portraits of family members, friends and colleagues were an important aspect of Munch's early activity as an artist, and Inger was one of his most frequent portrait subjects. The works that feature her include Inger Munch in Black (The National Museum, NG.M.01862) and Inger på stranden (Inger on the Beach) (1889, KODE Art Museums and Composer Homes, Bergen). She also served as a model in other compositions, for example as the frontal figure in the National Museum's Death in the Sickroom (The National Museum, NG.M.00940), probably painted the year after this portrait, and as the younger of the two women in Mother and Daughter (The National Museum, NG.M.00840). The frontal pose with the hands modestly clasped became a standard for his portraits of young women.

Munch turned to full-figure portraiture early in his career and continued with it until the end. It is a genre with strong links to historical representations of prominent public figures. One of the foremost practitioners in Norwegian art was Christian Krohg. The use of the blue palette and the sometimes hazy, translucent allow us to compare Inger in Black and Violet with the portraits of James A.M. Whistler, which were attracting considerable attention at the time Munch painted this work. The painting's original title, Harmoni i svart og violet (Harmony in Black and Violet), also indicates an interest in Whistler.

This is one of Munch's most important portraits and a seminal work from the 1890s. It was shown in the Kristiania exhibition of 1892 and the "scandal" presentation that followed later that year in Berlin. The work was purchased from the artist together with Spring in 1899 (The National Museum, NG.M.00498).

Øystein Ustvedt

The text was first published in Edvard Munch in the National Museum. A comprehensive overview (Oslo: National Museum, 2022).
Creation date:
1892
Other titles:
Inger i svart og fiolett (NOR)
Object type:
Painting
Materials and techniques:
Olje på lerret
Material:
Canvas
Dimensions:
Width: 122.5 cm
Height: 172.5 cm
Keywords:
Visual art
Classification:
532 - Bildende kunst
Motif - type:
Portrait
Motif - person:
Munch, Inger (depicted person)
Inventory no.:
NG.M.00499
Cataloguing level:
Single object
Inscriptions:
Primary, Signature and dating, nede venstre: E. Munch 1892
Acquisition:
Purchased 1899
Owner and collection:
Nasjonalmuseet for kunst, arkitektur og design, The Fine Art Collections
Photo:
Høstland, Børre
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