Munch: In His Own Words (Art & Design)

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From Publishers Weekly
Director of the well-known Louisiana Museum of Modern Art outside Copenhagen, Danish art and architecture critic Tojner (Knud Holscher: Architect and Industrial Designer) has assembled a selection of texts by Norwegian modernist Edvard Munch (1863-1944), whose most famous work is The Scream. Visually, the book is up to Prestel's usual standard, with images of Munch's tortured men and women coming through sharply and clearly. But while chapters like "Munch and His Own Words," "The Nature of Art, and that of the Artist," and "Munch and Other People" have helpful short prefaces by Tojner, they present insurmountable problems that should make any librarian or art fan think twice. The translators, barely credited in minuscule print on the Larsen and Munch travel round Europe together or on each other's tail" is just one example of poor idiom control. The meaning of Tojner pronouncements like "When Munch paints houses, they have faces; when he paints people, their bodies are tattooed with points of contact with the surrounding world" seems hopelessly obscure. And there are clumsy and facile paradoxes that seem at least partly the author's doing, as when Munch is characterized as painting his subjects "at exactly the right moment, capturing a kind of taciturn eloquence." Munch was an ill-tempered misanthrope whose writings are unlikely to attract the kind of sympathy inspired by Van Gogh's letters, but when the ever-anguished artist is allowed to speak for himself, the results can have a certain nasty, brusque horse sense, such as this discussion with a country neighbor: " `Why don't you paint small paintings that can be sold, like everybody else,' asks my milkman. Look after your cows, I said. You know something about that." Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (1863-1944), considered one of the leading practitioners of Expressionism, is here presented in the context of his writings and personal experiences. Tmjner, an author and current director of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, traces Munch's artistic development through the examination of his personal papers, including sketches, diaries, and letters that are here translated into English for the first time. These writings also show how Munch was affected by the early loss of his mother, his love affairs, and his interaction with friends and fellow artists, as well as by the literary trends and philosophy of pre-World War I Europe. This highly personal approach allows us to see the forces at work on Munch and how they were expressed in his art. This beautifully produced and well-illustrated book belongs in most art libraries. Martin Chasin, Adult Inst., Bridgeport, CT
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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