Arts & Architecture - Norway - page 907

CULTURAL ICON: EDVARD MUNCH
Edvard Munch (1863-1944), Norway's most-renowned painter, was a tortured soul: his
mother and elder sister died of tuberculosis and his younger sister suffered from mental
illness from an early age. Munch's first great work,The Sick Child,was a portrait of his
sister Sophie shortly before her death. In 1890 he produced the hauntingNight,depicting
a lonely figure in a dark window. The following year he finishedMelancholyand began
sketches of what would become his best-known work,The Scream,which graphically
represents Munch's own inner torment.
In 1892 Munch buried himself in a cycle of angst-ridden, atmospheric themes collect-
ively entitledFrieze of Life - A Poem about Life, Love and Death. Beyond the canvas, his
obsession with darkness and doom cast a long shadow over his life. Alcoholism, chronic
emotional instability and a tragic love affair culminated in the 1907 workDeath of Marat,
and, a year later, he checked into a Copenhagen mental-health clinic for eight months.
After leaving the clinic, Munch settled on the coast at Kragerø. It became clear that
Munch's post-clinic work was to be altogether different, dominated by a sunnier, more
hopeful disposition dedicated to humans in harmony with their landscape.
Cinema
Norway has a small, but internationally respected, film industry. Pioneering the industry's
claims to international recognition were the Oscar-nominated Nils Gaup and Arne Skouen.
Other directors to catch the international eye include Marius Holst, Berit Nesheim, Anja
Breien and Jens Lien.
The only Norwegian feature film to win an Academy Award was Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-
Tiki for Best Documentary Feature in 1951. In 2006 The Danish Poet , which was directed
by Norway's Torill Kove and narrated by Liv Ullmann, won the Oscar for Best Animated
Short Film, and became the second Norwegian production to receive an Academy Award.