Evening, Melancholy I
1896
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
About the artist
Artist
Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch ( MUUNK; Norwegian: ; 12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter.
See the richer artist page1896
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dominant colour
Evening, Melancholy I is a 1896 by Edvard Munch, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a lone man with his back to us, sitting on a rocky shore at sunset. His head hangs low. The water behind him is black. The sky turns from pale yellow to deep orange. Munch carved this image into wood instead of painting it. He rubbed ink on the wood block, then added watercolor and chalky gouache. Each print turned out a little different. The grain of the wood shows through his marks. It makes the scene feel raw and uneven, like his mood. Look up Edvard Munch (Norwegian, 1863–1944).
Evening, Melancholy I depicts the jilted, tormented art critic Jappe Nilssen, Munch's friend, on the shore of Åsgårdstrand, a fishing village south of Oslo. Munch chose heavily grained blocks of wood, allowing the pattern of the board to add texture to the scene, and he exploited the handmade aspect of the technique by carving blocks crudely. He also experimented so that each impression is unique, using black ink on the woodblock and watercolor and gouache to color the sheet extensively. An example of how method can reinforce meaning, the simplified shapes, flattened space, and dark hues…
This print is one of only two known impressions printed from the first state of the block before it was cut into two sections.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Edvard Munch ( MUUNK; Norwegian: ; 12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter.
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