Melancholy

About the original:

The colours, mainly melancholic blues, are muted in the soft summer night. Here we see a clear influence from symbolism, with simplification and stylization of form and colours. In a text that can be linked to this motif, Munch noted, among other things:

I walked along the sea - there was moonlight through dark clouds. The stones towered above the water mysteriously like sea people. There were big white heads there grinning and laughing. Some up on the beach others down in the water. The dark blue violet sea rose and fell - the sighs in between - the stones [...] but there is life over there by the wharf. There was a man and a woman - and there came another man - with oars over his shoulder. And the boat was down there – ready to go.

The theme in the picture refers to Munch's friend Jappe Nilssen and his unhappy love life around this time. The landscape is taken from the coast at Åsgårdstrand.

The motif is available in several versions - both paintings and woodcuts. It was also shown in Berlin in the autumn of 1892, when Munch's exhibition at the Verein Berlin Künstler was strongly criticized in the press and closed after only a few days. The attention surrounding the exhibition, however, contributed to Munch and his pictures being noticed and hotly discussed in the art milieu of the time.

The National Museum's painting was given as a testamentary gift from Charlotte and Christian Mustad in 1959 and incorporated into the collection in 1970.

Text: Marianne Yvenes

From "Edvard Munch in the National Museum", The National Museum 2008, ISBN 978-82-8154-034-7

Date: Probably 1892

Other titles: Malinconia (ITA)

Melancholy (ENG)

Designation: Painting

Material and technique: Oil on canvas

Technique: Oil

Material: Canvas

Dimensions: 64 x 96 cm

Subject: Visual arts

Classification: 532 - Visual arts

Type of motif: Landscape

Acquisition: Testamentary gift from Charlotte and Christian Mustad 1959, received 1970

Inventory no.: NG.M.02813

Part of exhibition: Munch und Deutschland, 1995

Edvard Munch's painting exhibition, 1892

Ausstellung Edvard Munch, 1954

Edvard Munch. Symbols & Images, 1978 - 1979

MUNCH! Nietzsche, Thiel and the Nordics' greatest artist, 2013

Edvard Munch in Zürcher Kunsthaus, 1922

Il Simbolismo. Da Moreau a Gauguin a Klimt, 2007

Edvard Munch 1863-1944, 1973

Ausstellung Edvard Munch, 1922

The mystic north. Symbolist landscape painting in northern Europe and north America 1890-1940, 1984

Edvard Munch 1863-1944, 1974

Munch exhibition, 1981

Munch exhibition, 1982

The dance of life. The collection from antiquity to 1950, 2011 - 2019

Munch exhibition, 1982

Munch and Germany, 1994

Funen Stiftsmuseum's Edvard Munch exhibition, 1955

Ausstellung Edvard Munch, 1955

Edvard Munch. The Frieze of Life, 1992 - 1993

Edvard Munch - Theme and Variation, 2003

Edvard Munch: An Exhibition of Paintings, Etchings, Lithographs, 1952

Edvard Munch: An Exhibition of Paintings, Etchings, Lithographs, 1951

Munch exhibition, 1982

Edvard Munch and Denmark, 2009

The Art Association's Edvard Munch exhibition, 1955

Edvard Munch, 1927

Edvard Munch. Dal realismo all'espressionismo, 1999 - 2000

Edvard Munch - drawings, sketches and studies, 1973

Il Simbolismo. Da Moreau a Gauguin a Klimt, 2007

Edvard Munch. The Frieze of Life, 1993

Edvard Munch and Axel Gallen, 1895

Im Lichte des Nordens. Scandinavian Painting at the Turn of the Century, 1986 - 1987

Dreams of a summer night. Scandinavian painting at the turn of the century, 1986

[Paintings and graphics by Edvard Munch], 1982

Munch exhibition, 1981

Munch 150, 2013

Edvard Munch, 1927

Edvard Munch's "Mermaid", 2005

The magical north. Finnish and Norwegian art around 1900, 2015

Lumières du Nord, La peinture scandinave, 1987

Edvard Munch. The Frieze of Life, 1993

The mystic north. Symbolist landscape painting in northern Europe and north America 1890-1940, 1984

Edvard Munch: An Exhibition of Paintings, Etchings, Lithographs, 1951

The Venice Biennale, 1954

Munch 1863-1944, 2005

Munch and Germany, 1994 - 1995

The masterworks of Edvard Munch, 1979

Edvard Munch - Archetypes, 2015 - 2016

Edvard Munch 1863-1944, 1977

Edvard Munch, 1968

Landschaft als Kosmos der Soule. Malerei des nordischen Symbolismus bis Munch, 1998

Munch becomes "Munch". Artistic strategies 1880-1892, 2008 - 2009

Nordic moods. Nordic painting at the turn of the century, 1987

Ausstellung Edvard Munch, 1922

The magical north. Finnish and Norwegian art around 1900 (Main title/ applied/ Norwegian), 2015

Edvard Munch and Denmark, 2010

Edvard Munch 1863-1944, 1974

Edvard Munch: An Exhibition of Paintings, Etchings, Lithographs, 1951

Edvard Munch: An Exhibition of Paintings, Etchings, Litographs, 1951 - 1952

[Paintings and graphics by Edvard Munch], 1982

Registration level: Single object

Owner and collection: The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Visual Art Collections

Photo: Børre Høstland/Lathion, Jacques