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Lot Essay
The catalogue raisonné by Gerd Woll records only two other impressions of this state; both of which are in the Munchmuseet, Oslo.
The rare and unusual woodcut Young Couple in a Spruce Forest (Woll 540) seems to form a pair with Munch's better known print Towards the Forest II (W. 541), executed roughly at the same time in 1915. In fact, the two prints could be seen as a sequence, whereby the young couple is first seen approaching the forest, before finally stepping into the dark woods for a secret embrace.
The image of Young Couple in a Spruce Forest is made-up of short, narrow lines gouged out of a dark surface, which itself is printed over a multicoloured, striped surface. The effect is that of cold, glittering northern moonlight falling through a dense canopy of needles into the forest and onto the figures. Munch further heightened the sense of almost being in the forest by using very fibrous, natural paper and by printing the dark surface from a single, heavily grained plank of spruce wood.
The rare and unusual woodcut Young Couple in a Spruce Forest (Woll 540) seems to form a pair with Munch's better known print Towards the Forest II (W. 541), executed roughly at the same time in 1915. In fact, the two prints could be seen as a sequence, whereby the young couple is first seen approaching the forest, before finally stepping into the dark woods for a secret embrace.
The image of Young Couple in a Spruce Forest is made-up of short, narrow lines gouged out of a dark surface, which itself is printed over a multicoloured, striped surface. The effect is that of cold, glittering northern moonlight falling through a dense canopy of needles into the forest and onto the figures. Munch further heightened the sense of almost being in the forest by using very fibrous, natural paper and by printing the dark surface from a single, heavily grained plank of spruce wood.