Edvard Munch — "And I live with the dead – my mother, my sister [Sophie], my grandfather, my fat…"
And I live with the dead – my mother, my sister [Sophie], my grandfather, my father [who died in 1889, when Munch was in France].. . Every day is the same – my friends have stopped coming – their laughter disturbs me, tortures me.. ..my daily walk round the old castle becomes shorter and shorter, it tires me more and more to take walks. The fire in the fireplace is my only friend – the time I spend sitting in front of the fireplace gets longer and longer.. ..at its worst I lean my head against the fireplace overwhelmed by the sudden urge – Kill yourself and then it's all over. Why live?
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Norwegian Expressionist painter whose The Scream (1893) became the iconic image of modern existential dread.
Closely associated with
James Ensor (Belgian Expressionist peer) and Egon Schiele (younger Expressionist heir).
For an intellectual contrast, see
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, French Impressionist (1841-1919) — Munch and Renoir were exact contemporaries painting the same Belle Époque from opposite emotional poles — Renoir's dappled-light bourgeois pleasure and Munch's anxiety-soaked bourgeois terror are the late-19th-century painting's two halves. The same world; the cleanest emotional inversion.
Details
A raw and deeply personal diary entry detailing his profound isolation, grief, and suicidal thoughts.
