‘Munch and Expressionism’ Review

New York

‘Munch and Expressionism,” a refreshing, revelatory exhibition at the Neue Galerie, is a bit of a bait-and-switch. Don’t get me wrong, with its intimate gallery devoted to “The Scream”—which includes later versions of the iconic original—Munch fans won’t be disappointed; but they may leave the show with something other than what they came for.

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Edvard Munch’s PostImpressionist ‘Puberty’ (1914-16). Photo: Artists Rights Society

Granted, more than half the exhibition’s approximately 80 paintings, drawings and prints are by its featured Norwegian—a founding father of Expressionism. These include celebrated works such as Munch’s swimmingly somber “Melancholy” (1891). A Symbolist painting of a pensive man on a shoreline, it is neither straightforward portrait nor seascape but a portrayal of the sitter’s interiority—a mindscape of alienation and unrequited love. There is the PostImpressionist “Puberty” (1914-16), in which a naked, fearful girl, stalked by her own ominous shadow, is perched on a bed. She looks as if she were unwittingly riding the wave of adolescence onto a rocky coast. And in Munch’s sickly green self-portrait “The Night Wanderer” (1923-24), an interior transforms into a nightmarishly synthetic landscape. Here also are multiple versions of several subjects by Munch, including his “Madonna” (1895/1912-13), with its carnal, soulful nude; his “Scream”-like “Angst” (1896-97), depicting ghoulish crowds in collective despair; and “The Kiss” (1898-1943)—whirlwinds of impassioned lovers.

But what’s unusual about this exhibition, which emphasizes the influence that Edvard Munch (1863-1944) and his German and Austrian contemporaries had on one another and the affinities they shared, is that its headliner often feels like a supporting player. Viewers who flock here for Munch and his “Scream,” which has been called “the ‘Mona Lisa’ of modern art,” may prefer the less-strident voicings of Munch’s younger followers: Emil Nolde, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel, Max Beckmann, Oskar Kokoschka and Egon Schiele.

For me, Expressionism—especially its poster child “The Scream”—is too histrionic. Yet the genre’s unwavering popularity and appeal are unsurprising. “The Scream” is the first painting with the immediate, in-your-face impact of the modern poster—a genre directed at viewers on the go. The image of a terror-stricken figure on a bridge—under flaming tongues and blood-red clouds, and responding to screaming nature—is not revered for its subtleties, however, but for its emotionally charged ease of access. “The Scream” is an adrenaline rush, a shot of angst that goes straight to the heart. And although its existentialist spirit is not unique among Munch’s oeuvre, its delivery system—art as fast food—is rather unusual. This is why “Munch and Expressionism,” organized by the independent curators Jill Lloyd, a scholar of Expressionism, and Reinhold Heller, a Munch specialist, in partnership with the Munch Museum, Oslo, is so illuminating. It puts Munch and his “Scream” in context.

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Ludwig Kirchner’s 1908 ‘Street, Dresden.’ Photo: The Museum of Modern Art

After studying to become a painter in Norway, Munch exhibited and made his international reputation in Germany, where he lived from 1892 to 1908. Beginning in 1885, he frequented and later lived in Paris—a hotbed of influence Neue’s show sidesteps. The point is: Munch’s Expressionism also was inspired by everything from Paul Cézanne to Wassily Kandinsky. Sometimes Munch’s effect on his peers is rote. In Heckel’s woodcut “Man on a Plain” (1917), the figure, like Munch’s man in “The Scream,” holds his hands to his temples as if in extreme pain or despair. Likewise, in Schiele’s watercolor “Self-Portrait” (1910), the subject’s mouth is agape, as if startled and wailing.

Elsewhere, the show underscores the crosspollination among artists engaged in experimental printmaking, in which, for instance, the woodcuts’ printed grain is an instrumental force of its own. Munch, among others, embraced the swirling brushstrokes of Van Gogh—whose presence and influence are strongly felt in this show even though the Dutch master’s artwork is absent. In Munch’s two “Old Fisherman” woodcuts (both 1897), the vertical woodgrain rains down on, flattens and expressively activates the figure. Likewise, in multiple versions of “Melancholy” and “The Kiss,” fluid woodgrain dynamically drives the compositions. Meanwhile, Munch’s brightly colored paintings of nude bathers feel influenced by Heckel’s Fauvist-inspired “Bathers in a Pond” (1908), one of the most electrifying works in the show.

Often, the strongest pictures here, though in dialogue with Munch, were created by other artists. Munch’s zombie-like mobs in his urban series “Angst” are models for Kirchner’s 1908 “Street, Dresden” (reworked 1919; dated on painting 1907)—among this exhibition’s knockouts. Comparatively, Munch’s figures merely illustrate despair, whereas Kirchner’s charged, acidic reds, pinks and yellow-greens, punchy yet slow-building, feel like emotions flooding to the surface. Beckmann’s masterly “Self-Portrait With Horn” (1938) was inspired perhaps by the brooding frontality of Munch’s own self-portraits, but Munch’s colors are generally icy and wan, while Beckmann’s palette is brash and his vibrating bright hues blush and burn.

Stressing inspiration and discourse over star power, “Munch and Expressionism” demonstrates that no artist—and certainly no artwork—is an island. Among this show’s kindred temperaments, dialogues and themes, we detect many voices, from Caspar David Friedrich and Auguste Rodin to Chaim Soutine and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Though physically absent, these artists—like those present in “Munch and Expressionism”—can be heard in and above “The Scream.”

Mr. Esplund writes about art for the Journal.