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Lot Essay
Edvard Munch's self-portraits are haunting psychic studies that present not just the artist’s physical appearance but are infused with a sense of the artist’s inner being. Munch’s typically Symbolist depiction of himself in the present work shows a disembodied head, splitting the physical and spiritual sides of the self.
In his best prints – and arguably more so than in his paintings – Munch perfectly matched medium and content and created highly condensed images, which are visually as simple as they are complex. Self-Portrait is reduced to four elements charged with meaning: the right skeleton arm alludes to the hand of the artist, whilst presaging his inevitable death; his white disembodied face hovers on a dark surface, calling to mind a death mask, as well as that first of all prints, the veil of Veronica with the face of Christ; the inscription of the artist’s name and the date of the print at the top mimics the entablature of a tombstone, a reference also to the lithographic stone; and finally the intense, velvety black of the background, the color of mourning, signifying eternal night.
The present second state is the definitive version of this print. In the first, unfinished state the background is still patchy, without the impenetrable blackness. In the third and fourth states, the skeleton arm and the inscription at the top are obliterated, thus losing all the memento mori connotations, which make this image one of the most chilling yet touching self-portraits of modern art.
In his best prints – and arguably more so than in his paintings – Munch perfectly matched medium and content and created highly condensed images, which are visually as simple as they are complex. Self-Portrait is reduced to four elements charged with meaning: the right skeleton arm alludes to the hand of the artist, whilst presaging his inevitable death; his white disembodied face hovers on a dark surface, calling to mind a death mask, as well as that first of all prints, the veil of Veronica with the face of Christ; the inscription of the artist’s name and the date of the print at the top mimics the entablature of a tombstone, a reference also to the lithographic stone; and finally the intense, velvety black of the background, the color of mourning, signifying eternal night.
The present second state is the definitive version of this print. In the first, unfinished state the background is still patchy, without the impenetrable blackness. In the third and fourth states, the skeleton arm and the inscription at the top are obliterated, thus losing all the memento mori connotations, which make this image one of the most chilling yet touching self-portraits of modern art.