''Ashes'' is an oil on canvas painting by the Norwegian symbolist painter

Edvard Munch Edvard Munch ( , ; 12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter. His best known work, '' The Scream'' (1893), has become one of Western art's most iconic images. His childhood was overshadowed by illness, bereavement and the d ...

. Painted in 1894-95 it is now in the collection of the

National Gallery of Norway The National Gallery ( no, Nasjonalgalleriet) is a gallery in Oslo, Norway. Since 2003 it is administratively a part of the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design. , the admission cost is 100 Norwegian kroner. History It was establishe ...

in Oslo. The work depicts a critical scene in a lovemaking tryst between a couple in the forest, which has left the man hunched over in shame or dejection and the dishevelled woman wide-eyed and motionless in frustration or despair. The picture's title suggests that, for whatever reason, the heat of their passion had burnt out at that moment. It is probably not insignificant that the scene was painted at a time when Munch himself was having a brief clandestine affair with Millie Thaulow, the wife of a cousin, during which they too would meet in the woods. In fact the artist wrote afterwards on a lithograph of the work "I felt our love lying on the earth like a heap of ash". In 1925, at the age of 62, Munch produced a second more impressionistic version of the painting which hangs in Oslo's

Munch Museum Munch Museum ( no, Munch-museet), marketed as Munch (stylised as MUNCH) since 2020, is an art museum in Bjørvika, Oslo, Norway dedicated to the life and works of the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch. The museum was originally located at Tøyen, w ...

. If the incident portrayed in the painting was of a personal nature, it had clearly left its mark.

References

{{Edvard Munch 1894 paintings Paintings by Edvard Munch Paintings in the collection of the National Gallery (Norway)

See also

References