Zach Stapleton

Mr. Newvine

AP Literature and Composition

March 12, 2019

Two People: The Lonely Ones

By Edvard Munch

https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/two-people-the-lonely-ones/GwGd2TaGklgGmA
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Biography of Edvard Munch

Munch was a man of suffering, and a victim of the ever-increasing emptiness of the world

around us.

Life Followed by Death

Edvard Munch was born in L​ö​ten, Norway on December 12, 1863 where Munch would

be the second child out of five for the family. His family was not of higher class, and Edvard

would deal with poverty for a majority of his childhood. Soon after his birth, his family would

move to Oslo, Norway where tragedy would strike the family multiple times. His mother would

soon die of Tuberculosis 4 years after the move, while only 9 years later, one of his sisters

Sophie which had taken on the motherly role for him, would also waste away from Tuberculosis

at a young age of 15. The remaining sister would be institutionalized for mental illness for a

majority of her life, while his only brother would die from pneumonia at the age of 30. This

would lead to Munch declaring “I inherited two of mankind’s most frightful enemies—the

heritage of consumption and insanity.” and Munch would only be left with his father, and

himself. Although his connection with his father would prove to be detached and depressing after

his father fell into mental illness “when he suffered an agitated psychotic depression, associated

with religious preoccupations, after his wife's death.” (Art Analysis: Meaning of the Scream by

Edvard Munch).
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Munch would owe a large deal of his early artistic development to the Kristiania

Bohème, an art group which was centered in Oslo. The groups values were set in free love and

greatly opposed a capitalist view painting, which hinted at a more naturalistic view in their

artwork.

College and Adult Life

Munch would go on to attend college in 1879, where he would pursue engineering, but

dropped out after only a year as his passion for art casted a shadow too large to be ignored onto

his field of study. This lead to Munch attending the Royal School of Art and Design where he

would eventually rent out a studio to pursue his passion with the company of other artists.

Munch would receive a scholarship to study in Paris, France where he would only stay for three

weeks before returning back to Oslo,. where he would work on his first major painting, “The

Sick Child” which would be used to symbolize his emotion and sadness after his sister’s death 9

years earlier.

Once again, Munch would venture back to Paris where he would gain a style of the

prevalent French impressionism from his contact with post-Impressionist painters Paul Gauguin

and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. This would lead upon the next phase of his life, where he truly

became a recognized artist.

Alone and the Frieze of Life

In 1889 after his father's death, Munch would be the only family member alive, other

than his institutionalized sister who he would never see. Munch would live in France from 1889

to 1892 where he would undergo the most productive, but most problematic and troubled era of

his life. It was this time where he would produce his series of 22 works called the Frieze of Life

where he would create works such as Despair (1892), Melancholy (1893), Anxiety (1894),

Jealousy (1894), and one of the most well-known works of art in history “The Scream” where it

is said that ​“Munch’s mental state was on full display.” These painting would be known as what

Munch represented life to truly be, and how the genders interact with each other. Munch would

proclaim that “There would be pictures of real people who breathed, who suffered, felt, loved.”

(Edvard Munch) when in conversation with his colleagues about this project.

Munch would start his Frieze of Life with the beginning of love, where lovers would hold

each other and blend into each other such as ​The Kiss,​ or his painting ​Madonna​ which showed a

women in ecstasy which was supposedly modeled around his love affair with Millie Thurlow,

which soon proved to be troublesome for Munch.

Munch’s second stage of the Frieze of Life would be the 3 stages of women which

exhibited how love “kills a person”. It would demonstrate a young girl going pre-love on the left,

where she was typically pure, in the middle would be a woman who was normally sexually free
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or with a man showing the peak of love, and then the right side would show a women dying or

corpse-like. Munch would introduce his work ​Vampire​ symbolizing how love drains you to

complete the set.

His third stage was called Anxiety, Munch provides little backstory to this set, his use of

harsh colors and blank staring faces demand a response from the person viewing the artwork. In

this set, the Scream would also be created, where it would add upon to the bone-chilling

sequence.

The fourth and final stage would be Death, where Munch would draw upon the tragedies

of his youth in order to create masterpieces. The works of art in this set would showcase his

proximity to the abyss in works such as ​The Deathbed Fever ​or ​Death in the Sickroom t​ o show

the death of his family members. Munch’s final set would show the universal suffering that every

human undergoes in their life and how its essential the cycle of life.

Munch would end the Frieze of Life proclaiming “My whole life has been spent walking

by the side of a bottomless chasm, jumping from stone to stone. Sometimes I try to leave my

narrow path and join the swirling mainstream of life, but I always find myself drawn inexorably

back towards the chasm’s edge, and there I shall walk until the day I finally fall into the

abyss.(The Life of Edvard Munch)” After the production of these works of art, Munch would

become a world-renowned figure based solely upon his representation of the suffering of life.
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Love Life

Munch would hint out a semi-damaged relationship with women as stated “Munch's own

brief affairs caused him to intensify the connection he saw between women, love, and

death.(Edvard Munch Biography)” which is likely the result of any female figure in his early life

leaving him. Munch’s paintings also imply “a narrative that emerges of love’s awakening,

blossoming, and withering, followed by despair and death.”. One of his only documented lovers

Tulla Larsen had ended in tragedy for the love-barren painter as the separation of the two

resulted in a gunshot wound to Munch’s left hand, which further pushes his idea of pain

following love. This is not to say he hated love, as the beginning of the Frieze of Life shows a

particular painting called “The Kiss” where he shows two lovers wrapped up in each other and

can not be separated. Overall, little is known of Munch’s love life, but his paintings of sadness

after love hints to a life where he received love but also paid the price for it.

Late Life

Munch later in his life would delve into a life of alcoholism which would take a

toll on his physical and mental body. In 1908, Munch would suffer auditory hallucinations and

paralysis in one side of his body. This would lead him to admit himself into a sanitarium to

regain control of his brain, and to lean off drinking as much alcohol. Munch would check himself

out of the institution in the spring of 1909 and return to his painting, although he would never
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return back to his former glory. Munch would later skirt the edge of death with influenza in

1918-19, but this caused him to become reserved in his home in Oslo. He would turn to painting

mostly landscapes, although they are not known as his best and did not express the way his

previous artwork did. His last works before his deaths displayed his deteriorating condition and

the physical ailments that would affect him. Munch passed away at Ekely outside Oslo on

January 23, 1944, alone, as he always was.

Edvard Munch Technique

Edvard Munch was known to be an Expressionist, where he would symbolize his pain

and emotions into his artwork. Such as how most of his works portray human life, such as love

and death. A popular example of his work is the Sick Child where he expressed his sadness over

the loss of his young sister years before. Another interesting note about his work was that his

style of painting was “sketchy, unfinished-looking, using scrubby paint (with scratch marks from

the handle of the brush).(Edvard Munch Biography of Norwegian Expressionist Painter and

Printmaker.)” which can be seen in the painting “Two People: The Lonely Ones”.

Munch’s artwork would be created in such a way that it would cause discomfort or a

tense atmosphere for the viewer such as his set “Anxiety” in the ​Frieze of Life.​ Munch would be

neurotic in his art, portraying women that would reject him as blood-sucking vampires who stole

men’s lives with just a simple kiss. Using Munch’s most recognized and praised paintings ​The

Scream​ his expressionist technique can be revealed. In ​The Scream, ​a man is shown on the edge

of a bridge with his hands to his face in front of a deep orange sky, providing an eerie

atmosphere to the viewer. Although, Munch would go on to say that his inspiration for this work

would be his walk in Oslo where “The sky turned as red as blood. I stopped and leaned against

the fence...shivering with fear. Then I heard the enormous, infinite scream of nature”(Edvard
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Munch Biography). ​The Scream i​ s meant to be his own isolation from the rest of the world which

presented an expressionist value of alienation from others.

Edvard Munch’s oil and crayon additions and scratch marks on his paintings may be

considered as crude and hastily finished, which would only yet again portray his expressionist

style once again. The point of the crudeness was to show how life was not always perfect, and it

could come fast with no warning, something that Munch had learned quickly in the beginning of

his life.

His self portraits would prove to be mainly normal, with the exception of one named ​Self

Portrait in Hell​ drawn during his struggle with depression during his creation of the Frieze of

Life. He also would take pictures of himself using cameras, nothing too extraordinary except an

uneasy feeling that was provided with his blank stares.

Later in his life, he would suffer nervous breakdowns which would cause his entrance

into a clinic. After his release, his oil paintings became much more colorful and much less

pessimistic. Although, he would go on to switch to landscapes of nature purely, showcasing

nature. This would point to a more tame set of art from Munch that would coincide his slowing

artwork with his calmer and slower years (late life).

Art Analysis

In “Two People: The Lonely Ones” the viewer's eye can be immediately directed towards

the person standing on the left side of the painting. Compared to the rest of the painting they are

bright and provide warmth in an otherwise cold atmosphere. It can be assumed that the colorful

person on the left is a women due to her long red hair. A large amount of blue and black are used

on this painting which helps create a cold and depressing atmosphere. There seems to be scratch

marks on the painting providing a crude feeling to it especially as the sides are noticeably left

blank on a bigger canvas. The ground that they are on has white splotches which could be white

paint itself or, not painted over. If these areas were not painted over, it shows that Munch was in

a hurried state while making this art-work and was hoping to create a “life is fast” feeling to the

painting. Although, it seems that he had purposely filled spots in white where it makes a void on

the painting, which could show that life/love is incomplete. Another large observation is the

black figure to the right of the woman, they are completely black and they blend into the ground

around him. It can be inferred this is most likely a man, as there is no long hair seen on them.

This man could possibly be Munch himself looking upon a woman, as he had a troubled

relationship with women with female family members dying and his lovers leaving him in pain.

On the right side of the women, you can see the color going away from her or switching more

into that blueish color that the sky/water is made out of. This could be a reference to how love

drains people which Munch was famous for believing in. Finally, the name must be brought into
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question, specifically that Munch calls them “The Lonely Ones”. The man on the right certainly

looks lonely himself, where he is void of color and looks upon a vibrant woman. The woman on

the left although does not look lonely, she seems to be full of life from the colors used and she

stands out on her own. Although, Munch could be referencing that people experience loneliness

in different ways, where the woman is outgoing but still has that shade of blue that separates her

while the man could experience it as full seclusion from others and blending into the

background. Munch wants people to know that people can be lonely even if they do not seem to

be.
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Poem

He looks upon her hoping

That she can see him as

No one else would as he thinks

Is he truly nothing?

He can feel himself burn

Into the background

Gasping for help all while

Wanting to be noticed

His body is unrecognizable from

The scenery around him

The intense void that is

Inside of him seems

To be the same thing enveloping him

Is he truly nothing?
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She sticks out from the others.

Nobody notices that she feels the same way as the others.

She feels like she sticks out like a sore thumb.

All she wants to do is finally blend in.

To everyone else she is what they want to be.

No one knows that she suffers the same way they do.

She is disconnected from the rest of the world.

Her red hair is mistaken for passion.

In reality it is her anger.

Her gold dress is mistaken for happiness.

In reality no one notices that it is fading to blue, melting into the sky.

She wants to stop being excluded because of her physicality

And to blend in with the others.

Analysis of My Poem

The first part of the poem I tried to create through the point of the man as he looks at the

woman. I used words such as melting and void to show how how he blends in with the

background and how he feels empty compared to everyone else. The reason the man’s part has

no punctuation and that sentences are split onto different lines is that I want it to seem like it's

bleeding together and it’s almost in a hurried desperate state. The reason I include “Is he truly

nothing” as the only lines for his part that have punctuation is to provide the effect that he is

asking himself and the world if he is nothing. I also include it at the end of his part to tie the

beginning and end together, making it so his part is all the same. The reason neither of them have

perfect 4 line stanzas is to show that neither of them are perfect, and that they have their own

faults.

I introduce a volta right after his part to give time for the reader to contemplate his

question. It also provides the separation from the two people, which is also seen in the painting.

I then start the women’s part with how she feels compared to the man. She speaks in

complete and full sentences in order to show that an individualized line from each other, hence

why her thoughts do not bleed into the other line like the man’s section. I use words such as

sticking out and sore to show how she is separated from everyone else. In one of the lines I
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include that she wants to blend with the others because that is her own desire, providing irony as

it is not what others want or expect. I repeat the “no one else” to show that she feels like she is

disconnected from everyone else in the world and that she can not reveal herself to others.

I then talk about their physical looks are mistaken for her mentality. Such as how her red

hair is passionate but she is angry that she is not like the others. Her gold dress is ignored that it

is slowly turning into the blue sky color, something that she wants but everyone ignores.

I end the poem with her sentences starting to blend together, which shows that she is

actually starting to become part of everyone else, something that she wants.
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Works Cited

“Edvard Munch (1863-1944).” ​Edvard Munch: Norwegian Expressionist Painter, Printmaker,​

www.visual-arts-cork.com/famous-artists/munch-edvard.htm.

“Edvard Munch.” ​Biography.com,​ A&E Networks Television, 17 Nov. 2016,

www.biography.com/people/edvard-munch-9418033.

“Art Analysis: Meaning of The Scream by Edvard Munch.” ​Diego Rivera,​

www.edvardmunch.org/link.jsp.

Watson, Gray F. “Edvard Munch.” ​Encyclopædia Britannica​, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 19

Jan. 2019, www.britannica.com/biography/Edvard-Munch#ref5076.

“Edvard Munch Biography.” ​Encyclopedia of World Biography,​

www.notablebiographies.com/Mo-Ni/Munch-Edvard.html#ixzz5iqbfW5Tg.

“The Life of Edvard Munch.” ​Munchmuseet​, munchmuseet.no/en/munch.

Gray, ByWendy. “Edvard Munch and The Frieze of Life.” ​DailyArtMagazine.com - Art History

Stories​, 17 May 2018, www.dailyartmagazine.com/edvard-munch-and-the-frieze-of-life/.