Edvard munchog Max Klinger: Forbudt område

Abstract

Summary The close friendship between Max Klinger and the Norwegian painter Christian Krohg during their student days at the academies of Carlsruhe and Berlin is often, though briefly, mentioned in the literature on the two artists. But the impact of this relationship on their artistic development has been practically neglected. German art historians tend to ignore the relevant Scandinavian sources, and their Norwegian collegues have been reluctant, at the very least, to stress the interesting points of contact between Klinger and Norwegian pictorial art. For a broader, as well as a more detailed, treatment of this subject the author refers to her forthcoming study, Max Klinger und Norwegen. The purpose of the present article is to discuss the character and importance of Klinger's influence on Edvard Munch. So far, such interest as Munch might have taken in the work of Max Klinger is commonly dated to his prolonged stay in Germany in the 1890s. It is, however, possible to prove that Munch, through his close connection with Krohg, was very well informed about the graphic art of Klinger already in the early 1880s, — long before his first visit to Berlin in 1892. Thus, it may be shown that as early as 1880 two exhibitions of Klinger's earliest graphic cycles were to be seen in Oslo (then Kristiania), and that the works in question belonged to his friend Christian Krohg. At that time Klinger was not yet famous and ‐ thanks to Krohg ‐ his art was probably better known in Norway than in Germany. In 1891 the Norwegian National Gallery bought 53 graphic works by Klinger from Krohg's collection, thus becoming temporarily the museum in Europe where Klinger was best represented. These prints all date from before 1884, and must have been given to Krohg by Klinger in those early years when the friendship between him and the German artist was at its closest. By the same token we are lead back to the period when Munch for a time was a pupil of Krohg and certainly strongly under his influence. Thus it cannot reasonably be doubted that Munch was well acquainted with Klinger's imagery long before his Berlin years. Further, through thematic comparisons the author is able to point out, that this knowledge of Klinger's highly personal graphic art became an important influence on Munch's subject matter and pictorial conception, although some of his formal solutions and technical means undobtedly derive from contemporary French art.