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The Private Journals of Edvard Munch: We Are Flames Which Pour Out of the Earth |  | Author: Edvard Munch
Creators: J. Gill Holland, Frank Hoifodt
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
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Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 349181
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 206
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 5.7 x 0.6
ISBN: 0299198146
Dewey Decimal Number: 760.092
EAN: 9780299198145
ASIN: 0299198146
Publication Date: July 13, 2005
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Product Description
Scandinavias most famous painter, the Norwegian Edvard Munch (18631944), is probably best known for his painting The Scream, a universally recognized icon of terror and despair. (A copy was stolen from the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway, in August 2004, and has not yet been recovered.) But Munch considered himself a writer as well as a painter. Munch began painting as a teenager and, in his young adulthood, studied and worked in Paris and Berlin, where he evolved a highly personal style in paintings and works on paper. And in diaries that he kept for decades, he also experimented with reminiscence, fiction, prose portraits, philosophical speculations, and surrealism. Known as an artist who captured both the ecstasies and the hellish depths of the human condition, Munch conveys these emotions in his diaries but also reveals other facets of his personality in remarks and stories that are alternately droll, compassionate, romantic, and cerebral. This English translation of Edvard Munchs private diaries, the most extensive edition to appear in any language, captures the eloquent lyricism of the original Norwegian text. The journal entries in this volume span the period from the 1880s, when Munch was in his twenties, until the 1930s, reflecting the changes in his life and his work. The book is illustrated with fifteen of Munchs drawings, many of them rarely seen before. While these diaries have been excerpted before, no translation has captured the real passion and poetry of Munchs voice. This is a translation that lets Munch speak for himself and evokes the primal passion of his diaries. J. Gill Hollands exceptional work adds a whole new level to our understanding of the artist and the depth of his scream.
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| Customer Reviews:
Some Insights Into the Painter's Mind August 12, 2008
James R. Holland (Boston, MA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
While reading poetry is not one of my favorite activities, I was drawn to this volume because of my continuing interest in Edvard Munch's paintings and the mind behind them. Therefore the material in the book that interested me most were the insights into the artist's character and his personal reports of some of his own life experiences. It's always useful to have the originator of a piece of art spell out exactly what was going through his mind at the moment he was in the act of creation. Although discussing his tendency to talk the ears off some of his intimates, he was at the same time often silent and preferred working alone. He complained of constantly having beautiful women distract him in his studio by arriving and then standing between him and what he was trying to paint while disrobing in order to steal his valuable work time merely to satisfy their own selfish lust. Most of us would not consider this a problem but more of a gift from heaven, but then we aren't Edvard Munch.
There are various types of prose and poetry included in this 200-page translation of selected sections from Munch's fifty years of journal keeping. Some of the material flows as easily as water running down a mountainside and navigating some of it is more like shooting the rapids in pitch darkness. Munch took his personal note keeping very seriously as the title of his journal indicates. "We Are Flames Which Pour Out Of The Earth" is not a title for something the author considered light reading. One-segment details witnessing a butcher slaughter an ox. That's not the kind of bedtime reading most people treasure.
In another segment Munch meets Ibsen at one of his exhibitions and explains what he was attempting with some of the paintings about which Ibsen is curious. This happened to be several paintings from his life frieze. Later, he notes that Ibsen uses the meeting and fictionalizes what was discussed in his "When We Dead Awaken."
There is something for everyone in this translation. Some of it seems almost as obscure and disturbing as the artist's paintings, but that's okay. The reader will finish the book with some new insights into the artist and his work. Fifteen of Munch's lesser known visual works are also pictured in the book including one of my favorite woodcuts with gouging, "Man's Head beneath Woman's Breast." Another of my personal favorites, "The Brooch, Eva Mudocci" is also reproduced. This is a must-read for anyone who is truly interested in the man who was Edvard Munch, but be prepared to work a little. This doesn't read as easily as Tolstoy, Margaret Mitchell or Stephen King.
 More Poems than a Journal February 16, 2007
RAUL Gallardo Flore (Leon, Mexico)
Munch Journal talks about his tormented relationship with Frou L and his unique view of the world through the eyes of a painter and a poet. It's not exactly very autobiographical.
 An absolute must-read for anyone fascinated by Edvard Munch's life and brilliant work November 10, 2005
Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
The Private Journals Of Edvard Munch: We Are Flames Which Pour Out Of The Earth is an anthology of writings by Scandinavia's most famous painter, Edvard Munch (1863-1944), perhaps best known for his classic capture of raw human terror in "The Scream". Excerpts taken from his diaries from the 1880s to the 1930s offer poetry that is bursting with the raw pathos of the human condition. Expertly translated by J. Gill Holland, these powerful verses are illustrated with Munch's original black-and-white sketches. Highly recommended for library collections, and an absolute must-read for anyone fascinated by Edvard Munch's life and brilliant work.
journals reveal origins and sources of this famous artist's work September 7, 2005
Henry Berry (Southport, CT)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
As the subtitle which is lines from one of Munch's poems indicates, the Norwegian painter could write poetry that was as vividly intense as many of his paintings, notably his signature painting "The Scream." "The sky was like/blood--sliced with strips of fire..." are lines from another poem of his. The format of all of the sections from Munch's journals edited by the poet and literary critic Holland are broken into lines as if the content was entirely poems. But it is not. Munch's varied entries are perceptive on local events and persons of the day, his relationships with others, self-examination and self-discovery, and psychological insights. "The nervous talk a lot. Craziness often expresses itself in incessant talking. Talking has become...a sort of defense against other people...When I am talking I tax anyone I am with, as if I've taken him prisoner," he writes in the entry titled "On Talking." A friend of the famous writers Ibsen and Knut Hamsen, Munch appreciated the power of words and the skill of writers. He obviously took care to write as precisely and truly as he could, even for his "private journals"; here published more extensively than ever with a faithful, empathetic translation and concise introduction. With these journals, one sees behind the revolutionary paintings to the mind of the extraordinary painter who could make them.
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