The Sick Child - The Theme of Illness

Many years later Munch published an account of painting the first version of The Sick Child. To find a method of conveying his conception of the subject which he found expressed in the pale head of the model against the linen of the pillow, and in the trembling emotion of the mother, was a long struggle of painting and repainting. Finally he rubbed out the details of the setting which had detracted from the child's head and, as he put it, 'let everything stand in masses.'

In the process of studying the model to find the solution he noticed that his own eyelashes affected the image, so he indicated it in the painting by a network of fine lines over the surface, apparently made with the pointed handle of a brush. It is characteristic of Munch that this evidence of the visual concentration that solved the problem was repeated in the version of 1926.

The theme of illness and the method of working from the model were both typical of the painting of his contemporaries. What was his own was his conception of the subject and the emphasis on form at the expense of literal realism. He accepted the limits of the prevailing naturalism of the time, by depending on what was actually before him in the model or the outdoor scene, but the procedure of concentrating his vision on forms that could convey the meaning he found in the subject, which he carried further than ever before in The Sick Child, was the basis of his work until the end of the eighties. The character of the form which is the vehicle of expression varies. A significant anticipation of Munch's work in the next decade in its motive and in its emphasis on lines and areas of tone is the painting Inger on the Shore of 1889.

The artistic horizon was widening in the late eighties and knowledge of French Impressionism was reaching Norway. A number of the older painters had studied in France. The leading figure in propagating French ideas was the painter Frits Thaulow. He was a man of means and in 1884 had offered to send young Munch to Paris for a few months as he had other young painters. The offer was not accepted, but the next year Munch did go to that city for a visit of a few weeks. The free handling of the color of The Sick Child definitely suggests that he had some idea at that time of Impressionist methods. Several years later, in paintings of outdoor scenes, his approach to the vision and technique of the French school was much closer.

The composition of The Evening Hour and the manner in which it is painted are ultimately derived from the French, but Munch, with an emphasis that is less obvious than in The Sick Child, nevertheless revealed the particular meaning of the subject for him. The painting represents his sister Laura in a self-absorbed mood, unconscious of her surroundings--a landscape in soft evening light with small figures of a man and woman in the background. The spectator's eye is led into the space beyond her figure, but the isolation indicated by her posture and expression is reinforced by the composition. She is in the immediate foreground, the lower part of her body cut off by the frame, and the separation from the space beyond is emphasized by the accent of the verticals of the house directly behind her. In this painting of the melancholy sister Munch found a device which he employed in a number of later paintings to contrast the mood of an individual with that of nature.

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Edvard Munch, Impressionism, Edvard Munch Biography, Munch Paintings, Munch Drawings, The Scream, Ash 1894, Bathing Man, Mermaid on the Shore, The Murderer, Separation, The Dance of Life, Madeban Auf Dem Pier, Jealousy, Young Girl on a Jetty, The Girls on the Pier, Four Girls on a Bridge, The Kiss, Girl with Red Hair, Lady From the Sea, Madonna 1895, Portrait of Madame Cézanne, Summer Night at the Beach, Girl on a Bridge, Summer Night at Asgarstrand, Vampire, White and Red, Madonna 1894, Bathing Man, The Sun, Moonlight