likening them to a housepainter’s undercoat.
Naked Couple on a Sofa
1909
Woodcut in black on brown card, 65.5 × 48 cm
Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart
But more than considerations of technique, it was the subjects of Munch’s work that offended conservative sensibilities. The writer, friend and biographer of Munch, Stanislaw Przybyszewski, articulated the most unsettling aspect of The Kiss when he noted of the figures that:
“We see two human figures, each of the two faces melting into the other. Not a single recognisable facial feature remains: all we see is that point where they melt, a point that looks like a huge ear, rendered deaf by the ecstasy of the blood. It looks like a pool of molten flesh: there’s something hideous in it.”
Couple in Love
1909
Indian ink and brushwork, 44 × 32 cm
Brücke-Museum, Berlin
To the cultured men of the Verein, with their taste for heroic battle scenes and history painting, The Kiss, along with Munch’s other deeply introspective syntheses of the taboos of sex, death and intense emotion, was anathema. Together with the howls of protest from the press, it came as no surprise that the exhibition was closed after just one week. Paradoxically, the scandal did more for Munch’s career than any other event. In fact, it made his name in Berlin almost overnight. Munch wrote a letter home from Berlin to Norway:
Man and Wife
1908
Black and coloured chalk, 88.5 × 68.5 cm
Brücke-Museum, Berlin
“I could hardly have received better advertising… People came long distances to see the exhibition… I’ve never had such enjoyable days. It’s incredible that anything as innocent as art can create such furore. You asked me whether it has made me nervous. I’ve gained six pounds and have never felt better.”
The incident had far-reaching ramifications. It caused a rift between liberal and conservative members of the Verein that ultimately led to the foundation of the more progressive Berlin Secession.
Two Naked Women
1909
Chalk, 88.5 × 68.5 cm
Brücke-Museum, Berlin
A decade later, Munch was to become a rich source of inspiration for Expressionist artists as they explored ways of giving form to subjective perception and emotional states, rather than mimesis and anecdote.
The tension between cosmopolitan modernity and indigenous nature was an important political factor in debates around Germany’s artistic heritage and future. The concept of “German Art” was controversial before, during and after the era of Expressionism. But it was an especially contested issue in Wilhelmine Germany – from unification in 1871 until the empire’s collapse in 1918.
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