Edvard Munch Museum Oslo

Paintings to inspire

If, for you, "God is dead, and materialism provides no solace", the morning glance in the mirror may look something like Munch's Scream. Oslo 's Munch Museum houses over

23,000 works, including etchings, lithographs, paintings and photographs, bequeathed to the city after his death in 1944.

After a sickly childhood and the death of his eldest sibling, Johanne Sophie, Munch moved to Paris and fell under the influence of the French Expressionists Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec. He was drawn to the bohemian Montagnes Russes on the Boulevard des Capucines, where life seen through swirling tobacco smoke impacted on his style. His first international exhibition, a collaborative show in Berlin in 1892, was declared "an insult to art". This delighted Munch, who reposted "I have never had such an enjoyable time - incredible that something as innocent as painting can cause such a stir".

As was de rigeur among artists at the turn of the century, Munch was over-fond of alcohol, eventually leading to psychosis and the then voguish treatment - electrification. Works from around this period include the buoyantly titled Anxiety Death Struggle, Love Blossoms and Dies, Melancholy and The Drowned Boy. The Museum isn't one for a rainy day, since the combination of these titles and the rain hurtling down might make you think that life just isn't worth living.

www.munch.museum.no

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