Our Special Report On Edvard Munch example essay topic

Robertson 1 It is a cold and damp day as I head to the news station. The wind outside has gusto and with each passing step I keep thinking to myself that any second I could scream because the wind is so fierce. The rain is pouring down and my umbrella seems to be malfunctioning due to a lack of strength in my wrist to hold it up. I am late, and afraid of what the boss will say. Today is a day that everyone in the studio has been talking about, today is the day that I meet the Norwegian artist we know as Edvard Munch.

I step inside the building and am approached by my boss refusing to know, 'Why did you insist to be late today, out of all days, do you know how many art critiques are watching?' I feel ashamed, but it is only a second before my moral is lifted and I am met by a man of great size. A man that is most known for his work on 'The Scream' and here standing before me is Edvard Much. I approach Mr. Munch and shake his hand, it is a bit clammy and very cold and hard. I guess it will take technology longer than we think to get this reincarnation thing down right. He smiles, although I am not so sure that I wanted him to, I have never seen someone whose teeth were as awfully stained as his, but then again, death will do that to you. Kelly: Hello sir, I am glad to meet you, so glad that you could grace us with you presence.

Please have a seat, they will be doing a countdown any minute before we go on, your not nervous are you? Edvard: Grace? Your scientists were the ones that thought it would appease society to see someone reincarnated, I was having a joyous time up in Heaven with all the oils, and the canvases, and the lights and dark's. Nervous, not at all. I don't get nervous anymore, not ever since the time that I put out my first piece of artwork. Robertson 2 Camera man: And three, two, one.

Alright, your on. Kelly: Good morning art critiques all across America. I am Kelly Robertson doing a special report today with Edvard Munch. Yes, that is right, we are the first to try reincarnation for the first time at the station and successfully manage to succeed. Hello Mr. Munch. Edvard: Hello, and hello to all the viewers.

(Leans his head in towards Kelly and asks) I am supposed to talk into that glass circular thing right? Kelly: (In a whisper) Yes, that is correct. So, to retract since you asked that question I guess things have changed since the middle of the nineteenth century? Edvard: Drastically, that is the one thing I like about Heaven, nothing changes. Everything you see in your mind is what is still there, why, I believe if I had lived to see this age I should rather kill myself than become another useless soul in society. Kelly: So, Mr. Munch, would you say that we could fit your work into the Post-Impressionism era?

Edvard: I would believe that to be true. There is a certain kind of anxiety that haunted my work then. When someone looks at my work I want them to feel something inside them go off before they realize what they are looking at. I used the extremities of rhythm and color to delve into the deeper regions of the soul that are only accessible through the rhythm and color of one of my paintings. Kelly: It amazes me, your artwork seems to go from one spectrum to another, is there a reason for that?

Edvard: My art, is rooted in a single reflection. Why am I not as others are? Why was there a curse on my cradle? My art gives meaning to life from The Scream to The Dance Robertson 3 of Life, my entire work can be wrapped up in one entity: The Frieze of Life. The Frieze is an expression of anxiety.

My art is symbolism, it symbolizes what I was feeling, what I saw, and what my mind saw all in one. Kelly: Many say that you had art in your genes, what is your take on that? Edvard: Well, when I was five my mother died of tuberculosis, when I was fifteen, my sister had the same death toll. I kept this in for a long time, I had no venues as to where I could vent my anger. Then, when I was twenty-two I acquired the technical means to portray it. My mother and sister's death are something I retrace and replay over and over again especially in the wan faces I paint.

At this same age, I got the chance to study in Paris where I learned more about French art and symbolism. It was in these circumstances that my personal neurosis, the anxiety which women caused me that I could express what I felt through means of Symbolist art. Kelly: Could you explain symbolism and symbolist art for those of us that may not know? Edvard: Certainly. Symbolism was a movement in literature and the visual arts that developed around 1885.

Reacting agonist Realism and Impressionism, Symbolist poets and painters sought to lift the mind from the mundane and the practical. We employed decorative forms and symbols that were part of their poems' deeper meaning. We, as painters recognized that line, color, and other visual elements were expressive in themselves. Symbolism was a trend rather than a specific style. It provided the ideological ground for twentieth-century abstraction, it was an outgrowth of Romanticism and a forerunner of Surrealism. I, on the other hand took it one step forward, I carried it to another level of expressive intensity.

My paintings express all the emotions that everyone is afraid of letting out: grief, fear, love, loneliness, sexual passion, jealousy, and Robertson 4 death. Kelly: I see, the one that I am most interested in is 'The Scream', is there anything significant you can share with us about that particular piece of work? Edvard: I wanted to take the viewer far from the pleasure of Impressionism and extend them to my mentor, Vincent van Gogh. This is a powerful image of anxiety, the dominant figure in this painting is caught in isolation, fear, and loneliness.

Despair can be reverberated in the many linear rhythms. Kelly: Interesting, and how do you think this relates to our society and the age that we are in today? I have heard reference to your work being described as 'the soul-cry of our age'. How do you feel about that?

Edvard: I believe my art not only mirrors myself, but the whole age, perhaps this age in particular. For instance, with my artwork what was private was revealed to everyone in full gaze, much like the the tabloids that you people have and thrive on do today. Deeply personal pictures of people are put out all through your society today and that is exactly what I did with my art. I made my art my Kodak moments, as you would say, and my art is my deepest thoughts and memories. Kelly: What do you consider your most famous work? Edvard: I consider my most famous work to be the Frieze of Life.

You don't need to look very far for the origins of The Frieze of Life. It can be explained by the age of the Bohemians. The idea was to paint life as it was lived or one's own life. Besides that, I had already ahd the whole Frieze of Life ready in poetic from for a long time, so you could say that all the spade work was already finished many years before I came to Berlin. Kelly: So, you are a poet too? I myself did not know that.

Robertson 5 Edvard: Yes, I always wrote poems before I did my art work, with each poem, a new piece of art work was founded. I guess you could call me the Jack of All Trades. Kelly: I am very impressed with your work. I especially like 'The Scream'.

Edvard: Thank you very much. I hate to do this but I have to get back to Heaven, I cannot wait to finish my masterpiece. I hope that maybe we can continue this some other time. Kelly: Sure, and thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to come down and tell us things we might not know, I know that I sure learned a lot today.

Well, that concludes our special report on Edvard Munch while tying in the effectiveness of reincarnation. I hope that you tune in tomorrow for our special report on Christmas capers and remember there are only 13 shopping days left until Christmas, and now to you Jared for the sports. My day has come to an end and tomorrow is a brand new day. I bundle up and get ready to head out of the office.

I remember that there is something about Mr. Munch that perplexed me although I never got to find out the answer. I head back outside into the cold New York day and head to the library. I go to the art history section and open up a book about Edvard Munch, not only was I right, but Sue from the marketing division of our office owes me five dollars. Mr. Munch did indeed use oil on canvas as well as paintbrushes, although most of the works we see today have been reprinted in the lithograph form.

I head out of the library and remember that I have seen such a thing at the Museum of Modern Art that is right around the corner from me. Robertson 6

Bibliography

Edvard Munch (1863-1944), various authors, web 2001.