I Reach out the EKEBERG PARK At sunset and walk along the muddy paths to find the perspective. The late winter sky is like a watercolor: soft blue and gray clouds together, with a stunning gradient of yellow verging from tobacco stains to pale lemon above the distant, colored hills. In a view, I look at Oslo and listen for a scream.
In 1892 Edvard Munch walked in this same park Like sunset. Recording experience in his diary, he wrote that he heard “a great and eternal scream in nature”. The experience has become the basis of its most stable painting.
No one knows if the scream is real – there is a hospital nearby – or thought. Now, all I hear is the satisfied squeal of children playing on the hill, among the joggers and pedestrians walking on the park leaves.
While the National Portrait Gallery is holding a new exhibition of Munch photos, I’m in Oslo walking in the artist’s footsteps. Munch is inevitable: at Clarion Hotel Oslo, where I stay, a version of Scream’s Andy Warhol gives the lobby – Pop Artist is a big fan – and a picture of Marina Abramović’s interpretation of greeting me in breakfast.
From the point of view, as the sky falls into a blanket around me, the city’s main sequel is clearly visible. While the shapes of the islands and borders of Oslofjord are recognized as in those in the background of the scream, the Munch museum – known as the simple munch – standing in the middle of New modern buildings at Bjørvika Waterfront. The top of its noticeable tower is tilt, so architects say, to look like it will bend to the city of Oslo, the inspiration for Munch’s many works. In it, my guide, Sid, brings me to a tour of the broad collection.
“The munch is unique to how he got a move to generations and understanding,” Sid said. “He documents humanity at a time when beliefs and institutions have collapsed.”
I was struck by how Munch’s work, most of them over 100 years old, still relates today: from his ability to paint the emotional view of his sitters with a particular focus on mental health, in his belief that there is no separation between humanity and nature.
In the gallery, three different versions of the scream are shown in a dark light rotunda for 30 minutes at an hour, to maintain their colors. One of these was water damage under the left-hand corner: this was one of the stolen screams, taken by outrageous art thieves during a day-to-day theft in 2004 and damaged during storage (this was restored in 2006). At the National Museum, another version of the scream is displayed – he made eight in total – under the careful eyes of the two security guards. Another version of the painting was stolen from this gallery in 1994, when the police’s attention was otherwise conquered by the Lillehammer Winter Olympics. That one is just not in 12 weeks.
Other highlights of the Munch Museum include a wide room showing sketches of Aula paints, a series of giant artwork made for the Oslo University ceremony. They describe an abstract day broken into multicolored beams, a mother to be preserved on a rocky coast and a fisherman who teaches a boy, and considered his works. When the Nazis invaded Norway, these paintings were hidden in a mine. Munch’s work featured on the Nazis’ art list – the modernist and avant garde art is considered annoyed; Any deviation from the standard, any challenge to the status quo, is punished. After the war, these huge works were restored to the Pride of Place at the University Hall, which was open to the public on a Saturday a month from February-May.
The next day, I was traveling to Ramme, where Munch painted two of these works. A 30 -minute train ride and short taxi trip from Oslo, this is a shelter for munch lovers. You can walk around his house and outdoor studio and beside the beach. There is something about the sound of the sea, the rocky coast of Oslofjord and the apple trees that give it a great feeling of calm. For the munch, struck by health and mental health issues throughout his life, that’s the idea.
He bought the White House here in 1910, noting that it was rented to those who made the Tag -Day vacation makers, and hid it until his death in 1944. Inside, carefully restored bright yellow walls and white lace curtains served as backdrops for many of his pictures. I walk apple trees on a rugged coast of head of mussel shells where interpretive boards show his paintings set against the views.
Back to Oslo, I took a walk in the lively Grünerløkka quarter. Munch’s family lived in many different buildings in the area, marked with plaques, and in one of them setting one of his most moving paintings, the sick child, inspired by the death of his brother from tuberculosis. Here are all the colors of life: the vintage shops and hipster cafes line up on the edge of a small middle park, bright blue trams and the kid and creative walking city, while punk-hair baristas make drinks at Tim Wendelboe’s coffee shop. I feel like I can walk on the subject of one of my favorite munch paint, Madonna, a raven -haired woman on a red beret.
Before I leave, I respect my grave in the Savior’s cemetery. I wonder what he might have created is he is alive today. According to Linda’s walking guide, her love of self-photos means just one thing: “She will be a selfie king.”
Laura traveled to Oslo as guest of Visitoslo and remained in CLARIION HOTEL OSLO (Double from £ 147). Transportation is provided by Flytoget The Airport Express (£ 36 returns) and the Oslo Pass, which offers local transportation as well as entering the museums and galleries (from £ 40 for 24h).
Edvard Munch Portraits is on National Portrait Gallery 13 March-5 June (£ 21/£ 23.50 with a donation)
