Munch's Ibsen
Subtitle: a painter's visions of a playwright
By: Joan Templeton.
Series: New directions in Scandinavian studies
Publisher: University of Washington Press; Museum Tusculanum Press, University of Copenhagen
Published: 2008
Place of publication: Seattle; Copenhagen
Language: eng
Number of pages: 185
ISBN-13: 9780295987767
Subjects: Munch, Edvard, -- 1863-1944 -- Criticism and interpretation; Munch, Edvard, -- 1863-1944 -- Friends and associates; Ibsen, Henrik, -- 1828-1906 -- Friends and associates; Ibsen, Henrik, -- 1828-1906 -- Illustrations
Genres: Illustrations
Description: "Drawing on a mass of printed and archival sources, including Munch's extensive unpublished writings, Munch's Ibsen provides a comprehensive account of the relation between the two great Norwegian modernists. Situating the interlocking careers of Edvard Munch and Henrik Ibsen within Norway's cultural history, Joan Templeton establishes Ibsen's primordial importance for Munch as a pioneering modernist voice. She examines the over 400 illustrations Munch made of Ibsen's plays, one of the greatest homages a painter ever made to a writer, showing how Ibsen's imaginative universe was an essential and integral part of Munch's life and work as a whole." "Templeton studies the illustrations as readings of Ibsen's plays and as examples of some of Munch's best work in various media: the witty, tender drawings of Peer Gynt; the eloquent oil sketches of Ghosts; the powerful woodcuts of The Pretenders; the sumptuous oil paintings of John Gabriel Borkman. She shows how some of the strongest of the illustrations result from Munch's accommodation of his own symbolic structures to Ibsen's text to create an osmosis of word and image. She also demonstrates how Munch sometimes refigured Ibsen's texts to fit his own experiences and convictions in a process of reification that is as interesting as his fidelity. She offers a detailed analysis of the iconographies of Munch's famous portraits of Ibsen and provides a historical and analytical account of the Ibsen illustrations through which Munch painted himself into theatrical history." "Besides readers interested in the relation between the two artists, Munch's Ibsen will appeal to students of modern literature and art, art history, the history of the modern theatre, Scandinavian art and culture, and interdisciplinary approaches to the humanities."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 171-176) and index.
Table of contents: title: Letting in the light: the Norwegian culture wars; title: Theatre programs and Ibsen portraits; title: Sketches for the Kammerspiele; title: Portraits of the artist as Peer Gynt; title: Carving Norway's saga; title: Artists and models; title: Starry night at Ekely; title: In Ibsen's company.