Evening, Melancholy I1896
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. More about this work
About this work
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 create a visual correspondence to the figure's deep depression.
Text from the Cleveland Museum of Art.
How it was made
- Woodcut
- A relief print. The block is cut away around the lines, so the lines stand up to take the ink, and the sheet is pressed onto them.
- Hand-coloured
- Printed in black, then coloured by hand in watercolour, one sheet at a time.
Edvard Munch
Norwegian, 1863–1944
Munch trained in Kristiania, now Oslo, and spent long periods in Paris and Berlin in the 1890s, where he developed The Frieze of Life, a cycle on love, anxiety and death that includes The Scream. His painting drew on personal loss, including the early deaths of his mother and sister. He also made woodcuts and lithographs of great originality, sawing his blocks into pieces to ink them separately. After a breakdown in 1908 he returned to Norway, where he lived and worked until his death.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Cleveland Museum of Art has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 1959.82
- Credit
- Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
- Type
- Department
- Prints
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
