Munch: In His Own Words
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,History & Criticism
Munch: In His Own Words Details
About the Author Poul Erik Tojner is the Director of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark. Read more
Reviews
*Munch In His Own Words* is worth five stars just for the generous reproductions of the paintings, drawings, lithographs, and woodcuts that illustrate the text, as well as the selection of photographs taken by/and of Munch himself. These reproductions give one an idea of the stunning range and variety of Munch's complete life work, which goes well beyond his reputation primarily as the guy who painted `The Scream.' Nevertheless, in spite of this variety, one can still trace the red thread that runs through virtually everything he ever produced in his long career: a violently passionate and often antagonistic engagement with life and the world around him.So it is that the actual text of *Munch In His Own Words* can only be a bonus--and in this book we get extracts from Munch's personal journals and letters that offer first-hand insights into his complex psyche from which his extraordinary art emerged. Some of these texts are brilliant evocations of the artist's role as rebel and savior, others repetitive and obsessive, still others read like the ravings of a paranoid schizophrenic. Not having access to the complete texts, one wonders if they might have been edited and selected with an eye to a little more variety and little less repetition, but it's hard to complain. Munch is almost as explosive and idiosyncratic a writer as he is a painter and, on the whole, the texts provide a rewarding counterpoint and context to the art.Another bonus is the introduction and chapter openings by the book's editor Poul Erik Tojner. Sometimes elliptical to the point of incomprehensibility, studded with fancifully pretentious interpretations, Tojner does manage to provide some genuinely enlightening and provocative observations, perhaps none moreso than his suggestion that one can find striking parallels between the work of Munch and--of all people--Andy Warhol! Outrageous at first--and yet Tojner makes a wholly compelling and convincing argument for this unlikeliest of pairings.A rich and compulsively readable--not to mention eye-catching--volume, *Munch In His Own Words* is a great overall look at an artist who painted, in his own words, the only way he knew how: with his heart's blood.