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拍品專文
The woodcut The Girls on the Bridge, executed in 1905, is a variation on a motif that Munch had first explored in 1901 in a painting now held at the National Gallery, Oslo (NG.M.00844). The two figures gazing into the water are depicted on the pier - not a bridge as the title would suggest - at Åsgårdstrand, a village on the shores of the Oslofjord, where Munch owned a small house. This shoreline featured prominently in his early work, including prints such as Attraction I (1896) and Melancholy II (1898). In these, as in the present work, the landscape plays a dynamic role, enhancing the drama of the scene by acting as a foil to the human presence.
In his painted oeuvre, Munch revisited the theme of The Girls on the Bridge seven times, each time modulating the scene, turning the figures to face the viewer, adding further figures in conversational groups, and allowing the girls to age with the passing years. Importantly, Munch stressed that creating variations of a subject did not constitute repetition in his work. He stated, ‘I never make copies of my paintings. And whenever I have used the same motif again, it has been solely… because it allows me to find out so much more about that motif.’
The present woodcut is the second version in the print medium, only preceded by a small etching in landscape format created in 1903 (Woll 232), which focuses on the girls standing on the pier, thereby omitting most of the landscape on the shore. Here, he reverted to the composition of the earliest painted iteration of the subject, but left out the furthermost figure. What was he trying to discover in the scene that he had not explored before? The most manifest difference is that he left out the third, furthermost figure; either to give the scene more space on this modest-sized woodblock or because he wanted to see how the mood changed with only a pair of young women standing beside each other. Stylistically, most noticeable is the shift from the gentle, curvilinear execution of the painting, rooted in Nordic art nouveau, to the boldness of the woodcut’s carved marks, reminiscent of but really anticipating the works of the German Expressionists. There is a new sense of artistic liberation in the raw power of each incision, but this is not merely a formal experiment. Technically, the print could be described as a 'white line woodcut', as the image is constituted by what has been cut and chipped away from the surface of the block and remains white in the printing process. There are no descriptive black outlines to define shapes or objects, only light and darkness. As a result, Munch has turned this originally crepuscular scene into a night-piece, with the mottled sky of a bright, Nordic summer night. As so often in Munch's oeuvre, his turn towards the print medium resulted in a concentration and reduction of the scene, which makes it all the more powerful. By being limited to black ink on white paper, the composition gains in intensity and cohesion. While in the paintings, the women on the pier stand out against the landscape, in the present print they have become one with their surroundings. Most versions of The Girls on the Bridge, both on canvas and on paper, convey a sense of gentle melancholy, boredom and suppressed yearning felt by the young women. This archetypal motif in Munch's imagination found its most radical, somber and romantic expression in the present woodcut - these two girls will never leave, staring forever silently into the water.
According to Gustav Schiefler, the early patron, collector and author of the first catalogue raisonné of the prints of Edvard Munch, the earliest impressions of this print show a weak upper border, a trait that is very noticeable in the present example.
In his painted oeuvre, Munch revisited the theme of The Girls on the Bridge seven times, each time modulating the scene, turning the figures to face the viewer, adding further figures in conversational groups, and allowing the girls to age with the passing years. Importantly, Munch stressed that creating variations of a subject did not constitute repetition in his work. He stated, ‘I never make copies of my paintings. And whenever I have used the same motif again, it has been solely… because it allows me to find out so much more about that motif.’
The present woodcut is the second version in the print medium, only preceded by a small etching in landscape format created in 1903 (Woll 232), which focuses on the girls standing on the pier, thereby omitting most of the landscape on the shore. Here, he reverted to the composition of the earliest painted iteration of the subject, but left out the furthermost figure. What was he trying to discover in the scene that he had not explored before? The most manifest difference is that he left out the third, furthermost figure; either to give the scene more space on this modest-sized woodblock or because he wanted to see how the mood changed with only a pair of young women standing beside each other. Stylistically, most noticeable is the shift from the gentle, curvilinear execution of the painting, rooted in Nordic art nouveau, to the boldness of the woodcut’s carved marks, reminiscent of but really anticipating the works of the German Expressionists. There is a new sense of artistic liberation in the raw power of each incision, but this is not merely a formal experiment. Technically, the print could be described as a 'white line woodcut', as the image is constituted by what has been cut and chipped away from the surface of the block and remains white in the printing process. There are no descriptive black outlines to define shapes or objects, only light and darkness. As a result, Munch has turned this originally crepuscular scene into a night-piece, with the mottled sky of a bright, Nordic summer night. As so often in Munch's oeuvre, his turn towards the print medium resulted in a concentration and reduction of the scene, which makes it all the more powerful. By being limited to black ink on white paper, the composition gains in intensity and cohesion. While in the paintings, the women on the pier stand out against the landscape, in the present print they have become one with their surroundings. Most versions of The Girls on the Bridge, both on canvas and on paper, convey a sense of gentle melancholy, boredom and suppressed yearning felt by the young women. This archetypal motif in Munch's imagination found its most radical, somber and romantic expression in the present woodcut - these two girls will never leave, staring forever silently into the water.
According to Gustav Schiefler, the early patron, collector and author of the first catalogue raisonné of the prints of Edvard Munch, the earliest impressions of this print show a weak upper border, a trait that is very noticeable in the present example.