Review
"This is a wonderfully vivid recreation of Munch's life. It lets us enter his world far more intensely than a conventional biography . . . building into a dazzling tapestry which has the weight and inevitability of myth." —Daily Mail
Book Description
Using Edvard Munch's own letters and diaries, those of his contemporaries and friends, and newspapers and journals of the time, this literary biography presents a picture of the artist as unsparing and true as any of his self-portraits. Damaged in childhood by appalling family tragedies, the Norwegian painter was obsessed with sickness, insanity, and death. His tortured and shockingly personal art, while at first provoking outrage, eventually gained him fame, wealth, and the respect of the art establishment that had previously shunned him. In reconstructing Munch's life, the author has incorporated the artist's public work and private words to make a dark, revelatory biography that reads like a novel.
About the Author
Ketil Bjørnstad is a Norwegian jazz pianist and composer with more than 30 albums and 20 books to his credit. He is the author of The Storm and Villa Europa, and a biography of the composer Edvard Grieg.
Story of Edvard Munch FROM THE PUBLISHER
"Damaged by childhood by appalling family tragedies, the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch was obsessed by sickness, insanity and death." "His life was tormented by persecution mania and emotional and physical fragility. Relationships with women foundered in loathing and mistrust, friendships frequently turned to enmity and violence, and his dark, difficult genius was misunderstood." "Yet his tortured and shockingly personal art, which at first provoked outrage, eventually gained him fame, wealth and the respect of the art establishment that had rejected him, and of his native Norway. In a single year, no fewer than eleven exhibitions of his paintings were shown throughout Europe, and the city of Oslo built a museum to house his work." "Using Munch's own letters and diaries and those of his contemporaries and friends, as well as newspapers and journals of the time, Ketil Bjornstad's 'literary biography' - which can also be read as a novel - presents us with a picture of Edvard Munch as unsparingly true as any of his self-portraits."--BOOK JACKET.
Art & Photography
Book Info
