So glad I enjoyed the sunshine yesterday and spent most of the sunlight hours outdoors. Today it snowed in the morning and after it ended, the skies were slate gray. I’m hopeful for tomorrow, the forecast for my last day in Norway is for sun.
Given the weather conditions, this was a good day to stay inside. I headed to the Munch Museum. If you are like me, you know Edvard Munch’s famous painting, “the Scream,” but not much else. The painting has become an international symbol for anxiety. I’ve seen many reproductions of it, including a three-dimensional one at the Grounds for Sculpture open air museum in New Jersey.
The museum has three versions of the Scream—two pastels and a lithograph. They are shown on a rotating basis. Every thirty minutes a door slides shut over the one on display and another slides open. Without question, it is the most visited room in the museum. I had to chuckle at how many of the visitors posed in “scream” position for a photo.
Now I will make a confession. Apart from the Scream, I was largely unimpressed by most of Munch’s paintings. I liked some of his early, colorful paintings. His subject matter was even cheerful, people on the beach, benign young children, landscapes, and expressive (but not bleak) portraits. But the later ones just depressed me. With titles like “Death and the Woman,” “Crying Woman,” “Sick Child,” “Sick Child with Mother,” “Vampire,” “Melancholy,” and the like, it’s clear to me Munch was an unhappy soul. The weather perhaps?
The museum has numerous videos throughout, documenting every facet of his life. This included a long explanation of the question “Was Munch a Hermit?” After a while I’d had enough. I visited the café for coffee. There I could have purchased a “Scream” cookie. I abstained.
When I left the museum, I walked near the Opera House. Covered in freshly fallen snow (the storm had stopped by then) the roof looked like a wonderful place to go sledding. Some young people were amusing themselves by climbing up and then slip-sliding their way down. I didn’t venture up.
I walked around a bit more, then cold and tired I went back to my hotel and took a well-deserved nap.