Title : The Dance of Life
Artist : Edvard Munch
Year : 1899
Medium : Oil on canvas
Dimensions : 125 x 191 cm
Year : 1899
Medium : Oil on canvas
Dimensions : 125 x 191 cm
The Dance of Life is
an oil on canvas by Edvard Munch, a Norwegian
painter. It was painted in
1899, which considered in the period of Expressionism.
Expressionism
is one of the most significant art movements in early 20th century,
which centered in Germany, around 1905-14, or later. At that time, the artists aimed
to reject the new, modern industrial society, and it represented the emotion of
“escape”. Moreover, expressionism is a reaction against naturalism of
Impressionism. It emphasis on expressing individual, subjective emotion or
personal feeling, rather than the description of certain object, or the appearance of reality.
Besides,
expressionist painters advocates the use of anti-naturalism forms and colors. For instance, they tend to express
the chaotic, twisted, ugly things instead of those stable, orderly, peaceful
things. Through the use of different color, line, distortion and brushstroke, expressionist
showed the fear and twisted reality, in order to attract the viewers’ attention.
Edvard
Munch (1863-1944), who is most well-known for “The Scream”, is regarded to be a pioneer of Expressionism in
modern painting.
As he is
mainly renowned for his contribution to Expressionism, that means he owned some
typical Expressionist features. Munch’s major strengths is to delineate and
convey the emotion. In his painting, he usually make good use of composition,
contrasting color, distorted bodies and so on, to attract the viewers in an
emotional way.
All of the above features could be found in "The
Dance of Life”.
The first one is composition.
This painting
shows several couples dancing in a luminous summer night. On the top of this painting, there is a full
moon and its shadow reflects into the water. The central element of the painting is a couple that a man in a dark suit is dancing with the woman who is wearing a bright red dress. Both of their eyes are closed and they are holding hands, therefore it
seems they fall for each other so much that they can’t see any others. On the left side, there is a young girl wearing a white dress with a smile on her face. Her hand reaches out towards a flower in front of her. On the right hand side, there
is an old woman dressed in black. Wrinkles appear on her forehead, and her cheeks
are sunken. She is having a sad, bitter facial expression,
and her hands are folded.
The overall
composition
of this
artwork is
symbolizing the everlasting
cycle of life. From this painting,
the “dance” is a metaphor for life. It represents various stages in a woman’s life. Just like the transition of the female characters, from a young girl, to a
mature lady, to an old woman.
On the other hand,
there are another interpretation for the identity of the three women. In Miunch’s
diary, he wrote that "I
am dancing with my true love - a memory of her. A smiling blonde-haired woman
enters who wishes to take the flower of love, but it won't allow itself to be
taken. And on the other side one can see her again, dressed in black, troubled
by the couple dancing, but rejected from their dance..."[1]
It
showed that this painting have a very personal meaning to Munch. According to
the history, Munch have had two turbulent love relationship in his
life. His first love which is a cousin-by-marriage, named Mrs. Heiberg, and the
other one is an upper class woman who named Tulla Larsen. Mrs. Heiberg left
Munch in the late 1880s, then he became the one who left his own lover Larsen.
As stated by Munch, in “The Dance of Life”, the man in the middle is
representing himself, the woman in red dress is his first love, as he used “memory
of her” to describe his “true love”. Besides, both the ladies on the left and
right hand side are Tulla Larsen, as Munch stated “rejected from their dance”
as he left Larsen eventually.
“The Dance of Life”
is definitely an expressionism artwork, not only because of the date it was completed.
As mentioned above, Expressionism
emphasis on expressing emotion and subjectivity through vivid coloration, distortion etc. In
this painting, the curving
outlines and the use of color shows the typical features of
expressionism. The artist used some long, fast brushstrokes while
painting the
folds of the red dress, also there
are some vertical
and horizontal lines across the
water and sky, as well as in the grass.
Moreover,
there are different
outlines for different women. On the young
girl in the left, the outline is full of vibrant brushstrokes of many bright colors
like orange and sky blue. With her white dress, it expresses the emotion of
pureness and innocence. The lady in the middle is connected
with her
partner in one
bold,
thick line;
her red dress shows the passionate emotion. The woman on the right
with her
black
dress on is
outlined with an inflexible and rigid line, showing the
emotion of dark and hopeless.
Furthermore, contrast
colors are commonly used in this artwork. For example, the light and dark greens in
the grass; the black and white clothes on the
dancing couples. This part of the painting is very interesting as both
warm and cool tones of colors are widely used for expressing different
emotions.
Personally, “The Dance of Life” is my favorite
artwork from Edvard Munch. Though Munch have many other famous artwork such as “The
Scream”, I found “The Dance of Life” is the most interesting one. At the first
sight, my feeling to this painting is that there are so many characters. It is
the main reason why this painting attracted me, because I would like to find
out the stories behind them.
Also, I have always been enjoyed in appreciate
Expressionism artworks. At the beginning, when I first heard the name “Expressionism”,
I have been wondering “what to express” and “why to express”. Then I start to
look for more expressionism artworks and found that it is really interesting to
discover and understand the emotion in them.
After appreciating “The
Dance of Life”, there are several questions I have been curious about. As there
are many characters in this painting, their movements and facial expressions
are always catching my eyes. Also, aside from the main characters, those people
at the back seems attractive to me as well. I wondered about, when we look at
the dancing couple beside the woman in black, we can clearly see the facial expression
of the man. Then is there any reason for the artist to paint this laughing
face? Moreover, there is a girl next the shadow of the moon, and we can see her
dress is not the same with the others. She is wearing a patterned dress, and I
am curious about is there any meaning behind it.
Reference:
Books:
Eggum, Arne. Edvard Munch: Paintings,
Sketches, and Studies. New York: C.N. Potter, 1984.
Prideaux, Sue. Edvard Munch: Behind the
Scream. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.
Westermann, Iris. Munch by Himself.
London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2005.
Websites:
"Edvard Munch." The Dance of
Life, 1899. Accessed April 10, 2015.
http://www.edvardmunch.org/the-dance-of-life.jsp.
"Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt."
Edvard Munch. The Modern Eye. Accessed April 10, 2015.
http://www.e-flux.com/announcements/edvard-munch-the-modern-eye/.
Yinman: I think it is great that you can quote Munch's diary, it helps to know more about his mind and how it was used to express his works. Yet, this essay can has some improvement. For the personal opinions on the artwork, I suggest you can elaboration more why this artwork arouse your interest, in what aspects eg colours, emotion or brushwork. Also, I think the paragraph "Also, I have always ....the emotion in them." is not so relevant to the topic. It is suggested to focus on the painting rather than a broad Expressionism period.
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