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Lot Essay
Munch began working with woodcuts in the autumn of 1896 in Berlin; a method that was quickly gaining popularity among artists of the time. Moonlight I was one of five prints produced by Munch that year. Aspects of the image were carved on each side of the same wood block, so that each impression required printing from both sides of the block. An additional block with the distinctive wood grain was then added, and cut into three pieces for the individually inked areas of local color.
The subject is based on a painting of the same name from 1893. In the painting, a woman is shown, almost full length, in front of a house, leaning against a white picket fence. The moonlight illuminates her face but casts a long and sinister shadow on the wall behind her. In the woodcut version Munch focuses the composition more closely on her facial features, cutting off her body just below the shoulders, and bringing her into the immediate foreground. A tree has been added to the right, which, with the window on the left, encloses her figure and flattens the pictorial space, creating a claustrophobic atmosphere. Her melancholy features shine ghostly and pale in the moonlight, seemingly imprisoned by the shadows that surround her. It has been suggested that the woman is Millie Thaulow, the wife of a captain in the medical corps of the Norwegian army. Munch and her met in 1885 and began a secret - and Munch’s first - love affair. The relationship was brief and unhappy, laying the foundations for Munch’s lifelong fear of intimacy.
In 1901, determined to find success in Germany, Munch had a number of his wood blocks, including Moonlight I, sent from Norway to his studio in Berlin. To his frustration, the blocks were accidentally sent to his cottage at Åsgårdstrand in Norway. As a result, Munch carved new blocks, including one for Moonlight, in Berlin in 1902.
Moonlight I is a highly complex image, created in the complicated and innovative process of multiple, cut printing blocks- all the more astonishing for being the artist’s second work in the woodcut medium. Probably due to Munch’s lack of experience in wood-printing at the time, many impressions are unevenly printed. The present impression of this rare, early print however is very successful, with the different blocks and colors well balanced and printing evenly and clearly.
The subject is based on a painting of the same name from 1893. In the painting, a woman is shown, almost full length, in front of a house, leaning against a white picket fence. The moonlight illuminates her face but casts a long and sinister shadow on the wall behind her. In the woodcut version Munch focuses the composition more closely on her facial features, cutting off her body just below the shoulders, and bringing her into the immediate foreground. A tree has been added to the right, which, with the window on the left, encloses her figure and flattens the pictorial space, creating a claustrophobic atmosphere. Her melancholy features shine ghostly and pale in the moonlight, seemingly imprisoned by the shadows that surround her. It has been suggested that the woman is Millie Thaulow, the wife of a captain in the medical corps of the Norwegian army. Munch and her met in 1885 and began a secret - and Munch’s first - love affair. The relationship was brief and unhappy, laying the foundations for Munch’s lifelong fear of intimacy.
In 1901, determined to find success in Germany, Munch had a number of his wood blocks, including Moonlight I, sent from Norway to his studio in Berlin. To his frustration, the blocks were accidentally sent to his cottage at Åsgårdstrand in Norway. As a result, Munch carved new blocks, including one for Moonlight, in Berlin in 1902.
Moonlight I is a highly complex image, created in the complicated and innovative process of multiple, cut printing blocks- all the more astonishing for being the artist’s second work in the woodcut medium. Probably due to Munch’s lack of experience in wood-printing at the time, many impressions are unevenly printed. The present impression of this rare, early print however is very successful, with the different blocks and colors well balanced and printing evenly and clearly.