Edvard Munch's Mermaid
Philadelphia Museum of Art
through December 31, 2005
Title: Mermaid, 1896
Artist: Edvard Munch (Norwegian, 1863-1944).
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 39 1/2 x 126 in.
Philadelphia Museum of Art: Partial and promised gift of Barbara B. and Theodore R. Aronson, 2003.
Image Courtesy: The Philadelphia Museum of Art
Intense suffering is a fitting way to describe the images portrayed achingly by Norwegian Edvard Munch. He lost his mother
and sister to tuberculosis and perhaps as a result his father entered a religious frenzied state of dementia. The artist
was influenced by the writings of Zola and Ibsen. While studying in Oslo he joined a radical group known as the Christiana
Bohemians.
The loss of his family through death and their own internal strife may explain the suffering portrayed in his work often
with the reoccurring theme of loneliness. Even Mermaid is by herself not unlike Munch's most famous work The Scream
with an individual caught in the horror of a violent volcano.
Title: Mermaid, 1896
Artist: Edvard Munch (Norwegian, 1863-1944).
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 39 1/2 x 126 in. Adjusted to its Original Format
Philadelphia Museum of Art: Partial and promised gift of Barbara B. and Theodore R. Aronson, 2003.
Image Courtesy: The Philadelphia Museum of Art
In 2003 the Philadelphia Museum of Art acquired Mermaid a large but relatively unknown work from the most
creative portion of Munch's career. It captures a Mermaid in that moment when she is emerging from the sea.
Edvard Munch's Mermaid exhibit looks at paintings, drawings and prints assembled from Norwegian and American
collections focused on the origin and meaning of the mermaid in Munch's work. 2005 happens to be Norway's centennial and this is
a fitting stateside inclusion in the celebration.
The creature captured has such profound lonliness to her a common theme to the Norwegian painter. Mermaid was
painted in Paris while the artist was becoming known thanks to his earlier work The Scream. The Industrialist Axel
Heiberg commissioned the work from Munch in 1895 as a mural for his home near Oslo. It was prominently featured high on a wall
to garner attention and the canvas was purposely shaped to fit beneath the rafters of a room where Heilberg kept
many of his art treasures. After his death his house was sold and the painting taken to the National Gallery, Oslo. Sections of
the trapezoidal canvas were altered to give it a rectangular shape. For this exhibit
the painting was re-framed to obtain its earlier role as an architectural mural.
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Title: Self-Portrait, 1895
Artist: Edvard Munch (Norwegian, 1863-1944).
Medium: Lithograph
18 x 12 1/2 in. Philadelphia Museum of Art: Given by Christian Brinton
Image Courtesy: The Philadelphia Museum of Art
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Munch is considered an important figure in the development of modern art given his translation of turn-of-the-century French art into
a Northern Idiom and he is credited with providing inspiration to German Expressionism and the symbolist movement.
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