'Edvard Munch: Masterpieces from Bergen' at The Courtauld Gallery

The latest exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery is a selection of 18 works by Munch from the KODE Art Museums in Bergen, Norway, that have never been seen before in this country. The last Munch exhibition I attended was a few years ago at the British Museum and it was full of despair and death but, from the images used for the publicity for the exhibition, I suspected this exhibition might be a bit different. And it was. There was colour and light, such as this 'Self Portrait in the Clinic' from 1909 when he was recovering from a breakdown.

One of the first paintings you see is 'Spring Day on Karl Johan' from 1890 when he was experimenting with Impressionism and this looks like he was influenced by a Seurat painting. This is one of the main boulevards in Oslo painted with small dashes of colour. Munch was still a young man when he painted it and trying to find his own approach to art but I think it's nice to know he was influenced early on by the colours and styles of the Impressionist masters. He might have even been happy when he painted it.

Another early painting that caught my eye was 'Morning' from 1884, distinctly showing his early influences. The overall composition and the delicate colours are very different from later works. A young woman is getting dressed in the morning, sitting on her bed and looking towards the window, one foot still bare. It's a gentle image, painted when he was only 20 years old.

I puzzled over 'Children Playing in the Street in Asgardstrand' from 1901-03. I don't know what the children are supposed to be doing but it looks like they're lying down while the girl looks out at the viewer. The notice beside the painting suggested the girl is on the cusp of moving from being a young child into adolescence. I don't really see where that is coming from but I can get the leaving innocence and childhood behind thing, growing up and no longer playing with her friends. One of Munch's regular themes was transition so maybe this was an early example of him finding his way. Still, the painting is light and airy and that's a good thing.

It was nice to see another side to Munch and see these paintings on show for the first time in this country. It was a pleasant surprise to see so many bright, colourful paintings. There were other paintings on show that are instantly recognisable as by Munch, using his regular themes and darker colours but I liked the brighter, lighter ones best. A final one, 'Youth' from 1908, a bather on the beach in northern Germany with the Baltic Sea in the background. 

'Edvard Munch: Love and Angst' at the British Museum

The exhibition about Edvard Munch's prints is about to close at the British Museum but I managed to squeeze in a viewing so as not to miss this rare opportunity to see his prints rather than his paintings. Munch is famous for one painting, really, 'The Scream' and he also produced a print of it in black and white which is in the exhibition. That painting sort of says a lot about Munch and his works, rather psychological and depressing, but I also think of his paintings of his garden that I saw at the Royal Academy a few years ago, bright and colourful paintings. That gave me hope that there might be some moments of joy in this exhibition since the title includes the word 'love' as well as the expected 'angst'.

One of the first exhibits was a couple of prints in different colours printed from the same block. What made them really interesting was that the wooden block they were printed from was also on show in a glass case beneath them. It was great to see a concrete example in front of you of how he worked, how he started to create his prints. Apparently, instead of using different blocks for different colours he sometimes used different colours on the same block. It worked, but I wonder why he decided to try it out?

As with turning 'The Scream' into a print, Munch used others of his paintings as the basis for prints. He did several paintings of a couple beside a window, embracing or kissing, and he turned this into a print but decided that the couple should be naked in front of the window, oblivious to the world, lost in their own moment of passion.

Their faces appear to be joined, melted together in their passion and love, so close that nothing can come between them. It's a lovely print with some simple lines used in showing the contours of the body. It's simple, it's small and it's in black and white and it's very effective, catching the eye from across the room. If nothing else, this shows that Munch can really draw.

Another print that caught the eye was 'Madonna', but this isn't the kind of picture of a Madonna that you might expect. This is a sensuous woman, naked and exposed. In the border of the print is a stream of swimming sperm in a blood red background and a crouching foetus. What's that about? One of my initial reactions was surprise that people knew what sperm looked like way back then.

It's a very arresting image with the woman almost appearing to be swaying, mesmerising the viewer, while the border seems to suggest that procreation and pregnancy (wanted or unwanted) isn't just the job of the woman, but the man has an essential role as well. Apparently, around this time Munch was questioning his previous championing of free love and, perhaps, considering the implications of free love.

One of the most striking prints was descriptively called 'Woman with Red Hair and Green Eyes: Sin' from 1902. An impossible mass of red hair tumbling over her shoulders and breasts with those strange staring eyes - what's she looking at?

As a famous painter in his day, I didn't realise that Munch was also invited to design sets for plays and even design theatre programmes. Of course he would be, lots of artists have done that before and after him, but I suppose I get caught up in the whole 'Scream' thing where something so psychologically charged couldn't possibly be linked to popular theatre. There were a few examples of his designs and I quite liked this set design for Ibsen's 'Ghosts', a production in Berlin to commemorate Ibsen's death.

I like Munch's experimentation with the form of the print and also the British Museum's attempts to explain these sometimes complicated processes. A favourite print was 'The Girls on the Bridge' from 1918 which was, again, based on an earlier painting of the subject. This print is, apparently, made from a wood block as the base coloured blue printed with a 'zincograph' on top, i.e. three plates in yellow, red and green. I haven't seen the painting but I like the print.

About this far into the exhibition I gave up on my hopes for moments of joy in the prints. Impressive as they may be, Munch is not an artist for joy unless he's painting his garden. His view of love seems to be that it's doomed from the start so don't get hung up on it. I don't know that much about Mr Munch but he doesn't seem to have had a terribly happy life. He lived through two world wars which must have coloured his view of humanity, but he does seem to be an archetypal artist of pain and depression. This exhibition does nothing to dispel this impression. It did, however, make me wonder what he'd be doing now if he was alive. Would he have found any hope in the modern world?

One thing is clear, though, in that he would have continued to experiment with his art forms and this is demonstrated by a series of three large prints in the final room of the exhibition. The three prints of 'Towards the Forest' were completed between 1897-1915 and show lovers in front of a forest. He seems to have cut up the print blocks to get different effects in the prints. There may not be 'joyous' prints but maybe this is the joy of Munch prints, the perpetual experimentation and striving to create something new? Maybe the joy is that he never gave up despite everything the world threw at him?