Lot Essay
Munch had spent the Spring of 1903 in Paris and was clearly affected by the technique and palette of the radical Fauve artists who exhibited their work at the Salon des Indépendants in 1904.
He increasingly turned his attention to landscape painting after 1900, and particularly to the topography of his native Norway. In these works Munch would concentrate on a few simple motifs, seeking to express a sense of mood and atmosphere through colour and line, often restricting his titles to merely signify the weather or time of day.
Munch had bought a house in Aasgardstrand in 1898, having spent several summers there in the 1890s. It was this coastline which became the recurring landscape motif in his historic Frieze of Life series. At Aasgardstrand he painted many of his most memorable landscapes, the best of which retain Munch's expressive, sinuous line, his unconventional approach to composition and the strong, acidic palette which he had made his own in the 1890s.
Munch's work of the period has a strong influence on the German Expressionists who had had the opportunity to see his work in several exhibitions held in leading German galleries between 1905 and 1908. The present picture was exhibited with a large number of other important oils in a one-man exhibition held at Galerie Commeter in January 1906. A photograph taken at the time shows Früjahr Aasgarstrand hanging alongside a group of other paintings of the period (see fig. 1).
This painting is accompanied by a certificate of registration from the Munch Museum, Oslo, dated 15 September 1995.
He increasingly turned his attention to landscape painting after 1900, and particularly to the topography of his native Norway. In these works Munch would concentrate on a few simple motifs, seeking to express a sense of mood and atmosphere through colour and line, often restricting his titles to merely signify the weather or time of day.
Munch had bought a house in Aasgardstrand in 1898, having spent several summers there in the 1890s. It was this coastline which became the recurring landscape motif in his historic Frieze of Life series. At Aasgardstrand he painted many of his most memorable landscapes, the best of which retain Munch's expressive, sinuous line, his unconventional approach to composition and the strong, acidic palette which he had made his own in the 1890s.
Munch's work of the period has a strong influence on the German Expressionists who had had the opportunity to see his work in several exhibitions held in leading German galleries between 1905 and 1908. The present picture was exhibited with a large number of other important oils in a one-man exhibition held at Galerie Commeter in January 1906. A photograph taken at the time shows Früjahr Aasgarstrand hanging alongside a group of other paintings of the period (see fig. 1).
This painting is accompanied by a certificate of registration from the Munch Museum, Oslo, dated 15 September 1995.