Melancholy

The shoreline of a sweeping bay, a jetty in the distance with three figures and a boat. In the foreground sits a man in melancholy pose with his head resting on his hand. The painting has been described as "the defining image of jealousy" (Thiis 1933, 182).

The simplified, stylised form links the work to syntheticism, a movement whose leading figure was Paul Gauguin. In the period 1889--92, Munch had several stays in Paris, where he became acquainted with the latest trends in French art.

In this depiction of a sorrowful figure, the boulder-strewn shoreline of Åsgårdstrand plays a central role. The undulating contours of the sea, sky and landscape create a dynamic of flowing lines. A friend of the artist, the poet Sigbjørn Obstfelder, once wrote of Munch: "... he sees in wavy lines, for him the shoreline wends its way along the sea ..." (Obstfelder 1896, 18). Jens Thiis also emphasises "the line of Aasgaardstrand, the gentle, sweeping, expressive and colourful shoreline, which occurs again and again in his pictures and etchings as a common denominator of his style" (Thiis 1933, 58). The painting was included in what later became known as The Frieze of Life, in which the shoreline seems almost to serve as an element that binds the series together. The depictions of melancholy and the kiss were among the first works Munch painted for his epic series about the course of love and life. Both are early examples of the way Munch repeated certain themes. Developing series with variations on a theme became an important aspect of his artistic practice.

*Melancholy *has been linked to the amorous encounter between Munch's friend, Jappe Nilssen, and Oda Krohg, the wife of Christian Krohg, which played out at Åsgårdstrand in the summer of 1891. Munch was a witness to the affair, in which the unfortunate Nilssen drew the shortest straw. As someone who was exploring the tribulations of love relationships in both texts and pictures (emunch.no: MM.T.2760), Munch found the situation interesting. Around this time, he enjoyed close contacts with literary circles, and writing would remain important to him as a tool for developing his pictures throughout the 1890s.

Munch painted five versions of the *Melancholy *motif (Woll 2008, M 241; M 284; M 316; M 359; M 360). There is uncertainty regarding their dating and order of production, and which exhibitions they appeared in (I. Langaard 1960, 135; Eggum 1991, 135; Eggum 1993, 213--223; Berg 1993, 213--223; Woll 2008, 267).

The National Museum's Melancholy is assumed to be the second in the series and differs significantly from the others in its manner of execution and the placing of the main figure in the lower right corner facing out of the frame.

The Munch Museum's Evening. Melancholy (Woll 2008, M 241) is considered the earliest version (Berg 1993, 213-223; Woll 2008, 267). Dated 1891, it was shown at the National Annual Autumn Exhibition in that year under the title Aften (Evening). In the catalogue it is listed in the section "Hand Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours" (catalogue of the National Annual Autumn Exhibition 1891, no. 321). It uses oils, pencil and crayon on canvas, and its idiom is sketchier than that of the other pictures in the group.

After the National Annual Autumn Exhibition, Christian Krohg wrote an enthusiastic review of Munch's Evening, which he believed the critics had overlooked during the exhibition. An important contribution to the reception of the Melancholy theme, Krohg's article has also created confusion. Is it *Evening. Melancholy *he is writing about? "Munch should be thanked, because that boat is yellow -- had it not been, he would not have painted the picture," Krohg wrote (Verdens Gang and Dagbladet, 27 November 1891).

Krohg considers the picture in the context of symbolism: "... the latest direction in French art. The latest catchword today is the 'timbre' of a colour. Has anyone ever heard such a timbre of colour as in this picture." He notes a shift in Munch's art that echoes the trends of contemporary French art. According to Krohg, Munch is the first Norwegian artist "who dares to bend nature, the model, etc. in response to the mood, and to alter them to achieve more" (Verdens* Gang *and *Dagbladet, *27 November 1891).

One work that is often mentioned in conjunction with the National Museum's Melancholy is a vignette Munch did for an anthology of poetry by his friend Emanuel Goldstein, which had originally been published as Alruner (1892). For a new edition of the collection with the title Vekselspillet. Psykologiske Digte* (Alternation. Psychological Poems) (1886), Goldstein asked Munch for a drawing. He added one stipulation: "It should be something symbolic" (letter 12 December 1891, emunch.no: MM K 1497). A few weeks later he agreed that the painting Munch had shown at the National Annual Autumn Exhibition would be relevant as a theme for the vignette (emunch.no: MM K 1545). In a letter sent from Nice, Munch complained about the difficulty of executing the assignment without having the painting in front of him. "If I were at home in Norway it would be easy, because then I could simply copy the painting -- now we will be lucky if it turns out well" (emunch.no: MM N 3036). During his stay in southern France, Munch made a series of sketches of the subject from memory. In his sketchbooks from the period, we find drafts that are close to the National Museum's Melancholy (The Munch Museum, MM.T.00128; MM.T.00129). Like the painting, these drawings differ from the other versions of Melancholy in that the figure is placed in the bottom right corner with his face turned towards the viewer, rather than in profile. He is not shown looking "out over the same still water," as Krohg put it in his article about the first painting (Verdens* Gang *and *Dagbladet,*27 November 1891).

The National Museum's painting was shown for the first time in Munch's exhibition at Tostrupgården in the autumn of 1892, where it had the title Trist Aften(Sad Evening). It also featured in the so-called scandal exhibition at Unter den Linden in Berlin the following year. Here it was included in the group with the heading "Study for a series: 'Love'". In his 1894 monograph about Munch, Przybyszewski writes of the work: "In the foreground you see, as in Chinese pictures, a male head gazing out of the picture frame, with an eye that looks like a triangle: a symbol of the eternal persistence of one of the most banal and painful emotions" (Przybyszewski 1894 A, translated in Vigeland + Munch, 2015, 86). Commenting on the latter, Thiis noted how the composition is "boldly truncated in the Japanese manner by the edge of the frame" (Thiis 1933, 182).

In this work, the figure is represented in the classic posture of melancholy, with his head resting on one hand. With its allusions both to dejection and artistic genius, this pathos-laden formula is firmly rooted in art history, and can be compared to works such as Albrecht Dürer's Melencholia I (1514) and Auguste Rodin's *The Thinker *from The Gates of Hell, begun in 1880. Munch had already used the melancholy pose in his earlier Night in Saint-Cloud (The National Museum, NG.M.01111).

The painting entered the museum's collection in 1970 as part of the Charlotte and Christian Mustad bequest. A series of sketches allows us to trace Munch's work on the theme (The National Museum, NG.K&H.1952.0025; The Munch Museum, MM.T.2760; MM.T.2355; MM.T.00128--25 and and sketchbook MM.T.00129). He also produced a number of prints based on the same design: the woodcut *Evening. Melancholy I *(1896, The National Museum, NG.K&H.1968.0167; Woll 2001, G 91) and Melancholy III (1902, The National Museum, NG.K&H.A.19104; Woll 2001, G 203). In Melancholy (The Reinhardt Frieze), from 1906--07 (Woll 2008 B, M 736), the male figure is replaced by a woman in a red dress.

Wenche Volle

The text was first published in Edvard Munch in the National Museum. A comprehensive overview (Oslo: National Museum, 2022).

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