Christmas in the Brothel
Christmas in the Brothel | |
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Norwegian: Julaften i bordell | |
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Artist | Edvard Munch |
Year | 1903–04 |
Medium | Oil on canvas |
Dimensions | 60 cm × 88 cm (24 in × 35 in) |
Location | Munch Museum, Oslo |
Christmas in the Brothel (Norwegian: Julaften i bordell) is an oil-on-canvas painting by Norwegian painter Edvard Munch. The Expressionist painting was completed in 1903–04 and is housed at the Munch Museum in Oslo.
Background
The painting was done at a difficult time for Munch: a commission for a portrait in Hamburg (of a Senator Holthusen, the father in law of Munch's patron Max Linde) had come to naught because of disagreements. As a result, Munch suffered anxieties, which he attempted to manage with alcohol. A visit to a brothel in Lübeck is supposedly the background to Christmas in the Brothel, a "light yet melancholy" painting in which the working girls in a brothel have just finished decorating a Christmas tree. "Ironic, sentimentally unholy", the painting is interpreted as a commentary on both Linde's upper-class household (where Munch was staying at the time) and Munch's own "pietistic home background".[1] Like other paintings of the period, it shows Munch's association with Fauvism.[2] Prostitution was a favored topic of Munch's, and one particular room in a German brothel would later inspire an entire series of paintings, The Green Room.[3]
See also
References
- ^ Bischoff, Ultich (2000). Edvard Munch, 1863–1944. Taschen. p. 74. ISBN 9783822859711. Retrieved 9 April 2013.
- ^ Clement, Russell T (1994). Les Fauves: a sourcebook. Greenwood. p. 73. ISBN 9780313283338. Retrieved 9 April 2013.
- ^ Ringdal, Nils Johan (2007). Love for Sale: A World History of Prostitution. Grove. p. 251. ISBN 9781555848088. Retrieved 9 April 2013.
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- List of paintings
- The Sick Child (versions from 1885 to 1926)
- Young Girls on a Bridge (versions from 1886 to 1927)
- Inger on the Beach (1889)
- Melancholy (1891–1893)
- Kiss by the Window (1892)
- Madonna (1892–1895)
- Starry Night (1893)
- Love and Pain (1893–1895)
- The Scream (versions from 1893 to 1910)
- Anxiety (1894)
- Ashes (1894–1895)
- Puberty (1894–1895)
- Self-Portrait with Cigarette (1895)
- Jealousy (versions from 1895 to the 1930s)
- The Kiss (1897)
- Inheritance (1897–1899)
- The Dance of Life (1899–1900)
- Christmas in the Brothel (1903–1904)
- Caricature Portrait of Tulla Larsen (1905)
- Morning Yawn (1913)
- Model by the Wicker Chair (1919–1921)
- Self-Portrait. Between the Clock and the Bed. (1940–1943)
- Edvard Munch (1974 film)
- The Other Munch (2018 film)
- Munch (crater)