Painting

Ashes

Artist: Edvard Munch
Creation date: (1895)

On display: Room 060 The Collection Exhibition - Edvard Munch

About

Against a dark background of slender tree trunks, a woman in pale clothing stands facing us. Her wide eyes, loose hair and open bodice tell us of what has happened. With her hands high on her head, her posture is expressive of despair, but also of power and victory. In the lower left quarter of the picture sits a man with his back turned to the woman. He is withdrawn and holds his hands dejectedly to his head. The only contact between the two after what has just happened in the sombre woods is through her long, red hair.

“I felt our love lying on the earth like a heap of ash,” Munch wrote on a lithographic version of the motif. This explains both the picture’s title and the stylised tree trunk in front of the man. Also in its use of colour and form, this picture is full of contrasts and tension: open and closed shapes, straight and curved lines, dark and light colours.

This painting is possibly one of Munch’s most pessimistic on the subject of male – female relationships. It depicts the man as weak and the loser, while the woman is strong and victorious. In this work Munch expresses both personal experience and typical aspects of the complex contemporary view of woman: “The woman who is at one and the same time a saint – a whore – and unhappily devoted.”

The painting was purchased for the museum in 1909.

Edvard Munch bestandskatalog
In Ashes, a deep, dark forest forms the backdrop for an emotional drama between man and woman. With ashen face, the man huddles in the corner, holding his head in despair. Behind him stands the woman, half-dressed, her hair flowing loose and dishevelled. She turns to face the viewer, her hands raised to her head. The picture is mentioned in a letter from September 1895, under the title *Adam og Eva etter syndefallet *(Adam and Eve after the Fall) (MM K 2229), while in the big Frieze of Life Exhibition in Berlin in 1902, it was referred to as Etter syndefallet (After the Fall). Despite these allusions to the biblical story of the relationship between man and woman, the picture is also rooted in the 1890s debate about gender roles. A lithographic version of the picture has the inscription: "I felt our love lying on the ground like a heap of ashes." This explains the ultimate title and the stylised tree trunk in the foreground that frames the subject. In the lithograph, the tree trunk has been reduced to a pile of ash.

Forests and trees play a crucial role in Munch's symbolist repertoire. There are also many references to forests in the artist's writings. The fact that the scene is set in a forest is significant, and probably the human drama was conceptualised as taking place in such an environment from the start. Skogsinteriør (Forest interior) from 1893 (Woll M 279) is regarded as a preliminary study for Ashes. The two paintings were exhibited together at Blomqvist in autumn 1895. On that occasion, a former owner referred to *Skogsinteriør *as "... the wonderfully beautiful painted sketch for Ashes" (emunch.no: MM K 1637).

*Ashes *was accorded a central place in the 1902 Berlin exhibition. During the artist's lifetime, the Frieze was displayed with varying configurations of paintings, which also went by different names from one event to the next. The 22 paintings shown in Berlin in 1902 were grouped according to different themes for each of the gallery's four walls. The first wall was entitled "The Seed of Love", the main wall "Love's Flowering and Fall". *Ashes *was the first painting in this set.

In 1909, the National Gallery added a further five Munch paintings to its collection. One of them was Ashes. In connection with the purchase, Munch sent a telegram to museum director Jens Thiis with the following terms: "The pictures for 10,000 kroner in hand within 4 days. 'Vampire' and 'Ashes' conditional on short loan for 'copying'. Munch" (Telegram, 18 March 1909. NMFK/NG-1000/B-0003 (copyist register)). The message may indicate that he was intending to make a new version of the picture, something he got round to only many years later. In January 1925, he signed into the National Gallery's copyist register to copy Ashes and *The**Dance of Life *(cat. 40). Although the 1925 version is similar in composition and has the same title, some details differ; the colours are more intense and the execution more concise (Woll M 1562).

In the past, there has been some uncertainty about when the picture was painted. For a long time, 1894 was by far the most commonly cited date, but recent research suggests it was more probably finished in 1895. The evidence for this is a letter from A. von Franquet, in which he mentions a new painting by Munch, which he refers to as *Adam und Eva nach dem Sündenfall *(emunch.no: MM K 2229) (Kneher 1994; Eggum 1983; Eggum 1990: Woll 2008). Sketches for the picture are also found in one of the artist's sketchbooks which otherwise contains material, both texts and drawings, from 1895 (MM.T.000131). As mentioned, Munch produced lithographic versions of *Ashes *in 1896 and 1899 (Woll G 79; Woll G 146). The National Museum owns a copy of the 1899 version (cat. 136). Several other drawings relating to the subject have also survived (MM.T.00348: MM.T.0343). These were probably done in 1896 in connection with preparations for the first lithograph.

Vibeke Waallann Hansen The text was first published in Edvard Munch in the National Museum. A comprehensive overview (Oslo: National Museum, 2022).
Creation date:
(1895)
Other titles:
Aske (NOR)
Object type:
Painting
Materials and techniques:
Olje på lerret
Material:
Canvas
Dimensions:
Width: 141 cm
Height: 120.5 cm
Keywords:
Visual art
Classification:
532 - Bildende kunst
Motif - type:
Portrait
Inventory no.:
NG.M.00809
Cataloguing level:
Single object
Inscriptions:
Primary, Signature, oppe høyre: E. Munch
Acquisition:
Aquired with funds from A.C. Houen Endowment 1909
Owner and collection:
Nasjonalmuseet for kunst, arkitektur og design, The Fine Art Collections
Photo:
Børre Høstland/Lathion, Jacques
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