Edvard Munch on a good day

Everyone knows what to expect from the Norwegian Expressionist, Edvard Munch. As he himself put it,  "Sickness, insanity and death were the angels that surrounded my cradle, and they have followed me throughout my life." His most famous painting, The Scream, brilliantly expresses the sense of anxiety and instability that tormented him. Until now, I had only had one print by Munch, a Norwegian landscape that trembles with neurasthenia. It was the first piece of art he created after his devastating mental breakdown in 1908.

Edvard Munch Landschaft (Norwegian landscape)

Drypoint, 1908

Ref: Woll, Edvard Munch: The Complete Graphic Works, 298 state ii/iii

But now I have a second Munch print, another drypoint, that emanates happiness and friendship, and a simple pleasure in life. The two couldn't be more different. It's a 1905 portrait of Erdmuter Luchsinger, the daughter of his friend Herbert Esche, then aged around three. I expect her smiling face cheered Munch up, at least for a while, and his record of it has the same effect on me.

Edvard Munch, Kinderkopf (Herbert Esches datter)

Drypoint, 1905

Ref: Woll, Edvard Munch, the Complete Graphic Works, 261b