Angstgefühl (S. 61)*

In 1896, Munch rendered the theme Angstgefühl (Anxiety) in both woodcut and lithographic variations. He executed this lithograph first, then translated the sinuously brushed art nouveau lines of the sky and the landscape into the deliberately crude gouge, knife, and chisel marks of the woodcut. About the scene which inspired this composition, the artist wrote, "Nature was colored like blood and people passed by...like priests." The incident that Munch described took place on a walkway high above the Kristiania fjord, where the famous Scream incident also occurred. In this color lithographic version, Munch emphasized the sky by rendering it in a bloody red, a dramatic foil for the black and white mask-like faces of the ravaged crowd which advances ominously toward the viewer. Their faces suggest the theme of the essential loneliness of the individual in the crowd, and the reverberating lines of the landscape beyond them allude to the agorophobia that so haunted the artist. In the painting upon which this print is based, some of the characters were identifiable as Munch's friends; a woman in the lower right foreground was said to be his married mistress, Milly Heiberg.