Fjord Landscape

The Norwegian master Edvard Munch was a pioneer of Symbolism and Expressionism. In 1908 he suffered a nervous breakdown and was hospitalised; upon his recovery, he purchased the villa Nedre Ramme, with its garden overlooking the Oslofjord, where he spent his convalescence. Fjord Landscape bears witness to this pivotal period. The motif of the fjord runs throughout Munch’s oeuvre: it was the searing backdrop to the figure in his masterpiece The Scream, yet here it appears as a tranquil and expansive view glimpsed from the garden, which he described as “the perpetually shifting lines of life”. The flowering tree in the foreground glows with golden light, as if symbolising the earth’s awakening; the anxiety and anguish that had long haunted his canvases gradually give way to brightness and vitality. For Munch, flowers and landscapes were never mere depictions of nature, but reflections of the inner psyche. In this respect, he is regarded as one of the earliest artists to transform nature into a “Psychological Landscape”.