Winter in Kragerø

Early exhibition titles suggest that Winter Landscape was painted near Kragerø on the southeastern coast of Norway. Curtailing his travel because of World War I, Munch produced a few related paintings there that same year. In this, the largest example, the artist presents more than a view onto his native landscape. Given the canvas’s size, the rock formations, depicted using multicolored stains, and the contrasting snow, rendered in thick blue, white, and green impasto, envelop the viewer.

In his diaries that year, Munch noted the anthropo­morphic quality of the landscape itself: “The stones protruded above the water, mystically like sea people . . . the dark blue sea rose and fell—sighed among the stones.” Munch’s success in Germany led to his role as the “spiritual godfather” of modern art in that country, and in his lifetime his work was understood as a precursor to expressionism.