Red & Black Week: Munch's Madonna and Vampire

It is already the 4th day of Red & Black Week, so now I am going to show you two paintings of Edvard Munch (1863-1944). As you can notice from his year of birth, it is the 150th anniversary of Munch this year, so the Munch Museum in Oslo is having an anniversary exhibition. It is open till October 13, so if you happen to hae some time and money, I strongly recommend to visit the museum, Oslo too is worth the visit!



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I visited Oslo last spring and unfortunately most of Munch's good paintings were out of sight, because they were constructing the anniversary exhibition, so one could not see the Scream or The Madonna. Personally I am not that big a fan of Scream, but I sure would have wanted to see Madonna. :( Well, at least I saw Munch's Vampire, but that painting was in desperate need of a little clean up. It was way too dark, one could hardly see the shape of the short-haired person in the painting. Interestingly, Much did not title it as 'Vampire'. The original name was 'Love and Pain'.



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I have always liked Munch's Madonna (1893-94), the colors are amazing and her face is at the same time proud, but it also looks a bit like she knows her own death is near. Of course there is also the obvious thrill of the name 'Madonna', since she is nothing like the traditional paintings of the Holy Mary. Munch made five versions of Madonna and unfortunately I have no idea which one of them is in this picture.

Thank you for reading, and remember to click the Red & Black Week icon to go and read what other participants have posted!