Edvard Munch

This anthology springs out of a productive environment that in recent years has been created in Norway for research into the art of Edvard Munch. Comprising scholars from both the University of Oslo and the Munch Museum, this environment is seeking to internationalise the research and broadening the network of scholars working on Munch's art. The nine essays written by art historians from USA, Germany, Switzerland and Norway shed new light upon different sides of Munch and his art, as well as on the impact he has had in art history. The authors in this anthology are more critical of their sources than has been seen earlier in research on Munch, and their interpretations of works are increasingly based on information that can be documented. A diversity of theory now supplements the traditionally biographical approach.One of the authors describes the process of identifying a formerly unknown Munch painting, Seated nude and three male heads, as well as addressing general problems of dating concerning Munch's oeuvres. Another essay focuses on Munch's portrayals of one of the most radical Norwegian art movements in the late 19th century, Kristianiabohemen, and the importance of this movement for Munch's development as an artist. Through analysis of Munch's paintings the authors also focus on Munch's role in the creation of a national identity, and his perception of the male role in contemporary society. In the last essay of the book it is being argued that Munch and his works have often been better comprehended by other artists than by traditional art historians. The essay shows how certain artists, most of them American such as Jim Dine, Andres Serrano and Elizabeth Jones, have appropriated and developed Munch's pictorial imagination, in independent works or in visual quotations.