Edvard Weie

Key facts

Lived

1879–1943, Danish

Movement

• Expressionism

Works held in

1 museum

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• What is Edvard Weie known for?+

  Edvard Weie is known for his rocky landscapes and harbour views of Christianso, a tiny fortified island in the Baltic. He rendered these scenes in Cezanne-influenced blocks of colour. These paintings are considered his finest work and among the most concentrated bodies of landscape painting in Danish art.
• What should I know about Edvard Weie's prints?+

  Edvard Weie (1879-1943) was a Norwegian artist, primarily a painter. He is known for his contributions to Norwegian Expressionism. Weie's prints are less widely recognised than his paintings, but they offer insight into his artistic range. Weie studied at the Norwegian National Academy of Craft and Art Industry, and later with Johan Nordhagen. His early work shows the influence of Impressionism and Neo-romanticism, styles he moved away from as he developed his own Expressionist style. Weie's prints often feature similar subjects to his paintings: figures, portraits, and interiors. His printmaking techniques included woodcuts and lithographs. These prints tend to have strong lines and simplified forms. Colour is often used sparingly, but effectively, to create mood. Weie's prints are characterised by an emotional intensity and a focus on subjective experience, typical of Expressionism. Although not as numerous as his paintings, Weie's prints are valuable for understanding the breadth of his artistic vision. They are held in several public collections, including the National Museum in Oslo.
• What style or movement did Edvard Weie belong to?+

  Edvard Weie was associated with Expressionism, an early 20th-century artistic movement. Expressionism is difficult to define with exactitude; unlike Cubism, Futurism, Dadaism, or Surrealism, Expressionism lacks a clear set of activities shared by its practitioners. It is sometimes viewed as a distinctly German phenomenon, flourishing for specific social and political reasons. However, it had a wider significance that goes beyond the transmission of habits and tricks. Expressionism seems to deal with universals: vision, subjectivism, distortion, and revolt. It involves interaction and interfusion of the arts: literature, art, and music. Strindberg can be called the first Expressionist. The interaction of Strindberg and Munch in Berlin and Paris was an event of great significance, since the flow of ideas from one medium to another was established.
• What techniques or materials did Edvard Weie use?+

  It is difficult to make generalisations about Edvard Munch's techniques, as the emotional content of the painting often dictated his approach. His method was also highly symbolic. For instance, the crimson lily on the left of the picture in the foreground is apparently Munch’s symbol for art. Although Munch's approach may look spontaneous and unplanned, the organisation of the canvas was carefully rehearsed in preliminary drawings, which were carried out on the canvas itself. The close-grained linen canvas was sized to give an overall warm mid-tone. In the finished work, the ground can be seen in the face in the foreground and on either side of the tree. The charcoal under-drawing was next applied to the canvas. It was evidently detailed and remains clearly visible in the face. Munch used a wide variety of techniques to apply the paint. These included turpentine washes, scumbling, over-drawing and scratching into the paint surface with a dry, bright hog's hair brush. For Munch, changes in technique were related to the emotional content of the work.
• When did Edvard Weie live and work?+

  Edvard Munch was born on 12 December 1863 in Løten, Norway. His family relocated to Oslo (then called Christiania) the following year. He began painting seriously in 1880, and in 1881, he enrolled in the Royal School of Design in Oslo. Munch associated with advanced Norwegian artists and writers. In 1884, he attended an open-air academy in Modum. A scholarship enabled him to travel to Paris in 1885. That same year, he began working on themes such as *The Morning After*, *Puberty*, and *The Sick Child*. *The Sick Child* caused controversy at Oslo's autumn salon of 1886. In 1889, the year of his first solo exhibition in Oslo, Munch received a state scholarship and returned to Paris, entering Leon Bonnat's art school. As early as 1891, he painted works later included in his *Frieze of Life* series. An exhibition in Berlin in 1892 provoked such debate that it closed after a week. From 1892 to 1895, Munch lived in Berlin, producing his first etchings and lithographs. In 1916, he bought a house at Ekely, outside Oslo, where he spent much of his time. Major retrospectives of his work were held at the Kunsthaus Zurich in 1922, and at the Nationalgalerie, Berlin, and the Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo, in 1927. Munch died in Skøyen on 23 January 1944. He bequeathed his remaining work to the city of Oslo.
• Where can I see Edvard Weie's work?+

  Edvard Munch had many exhibitions during his lifetime. In his home town of Oslo, shows of his work appeared at Blomqvist's (1909, 1918), Dioramalokalet (1897, 1900, 1904, 1910, 1911), and Kunstnernes Hus (1951). Other venues included the National Gallery (1927) and the Rikshospitalets Lokaler (1884). Munch's work was exhibited frequently outside Norway. Venues included Berlin (1892, 1893, 1895, 1914, 1927), Copenhagen (1893, 1915, 1955), Stockholm (1894, 1913, 1917, 1937, 1941), and Zurich (1922, 1932, 1952, 1957). American audiences could view Munch's art in New York (1912, 1913, 1960, 1963, 1964), Boston (1950), Chicago (1951), and San Francisco (1915, 1945). In 1963, the Munch-museet opened in Oslo to house the large collection of his work that Munch bequeathed to the Municipality of Oslo.
• Who did Edvard Weie influence?+

  Edvard Munch's art affected many later artists. His mature style defined trends that subsequent generations of avant-garde artists explored. His use of colour and line prefigured the moods of Picasso’s Blue and Rose Periods. They also prefigured the non-figurative work of Wassily Kandinsky in Russia, German Expressionism, and the bright colour of Fauvism and Henri Matisse in France. Munch's painting of 1884, *Morning* (originally *A Servant Girl*), was on view at the Norwegian pavilion. From 1896 to 1898, Munch lived in Paris, where he produced lithographs and made posters for Norwegian plays being performed at the Théâtre de l’Oeuvre. During this period, Munch met several Impressionists and painted some of his most significant work. In 1927, he had a retrospective of over 200 works at the National Galleries of Oslo and Berlin, and in 1929 a major exhibition of graphics in Stockholm at the National Museum. In 1936, he exhibited in England, but the following year the Nazis removed his work from display in Germany on the grounds that it, like all avant-garde art, was degenerate.
• Who influenced Edvard Weie?+

  Edvard Munch had a significant impact on many artists. His use of intense colour, distorted forms, and enigmatic themes, drawing on Symbolist ideas, influenced German Expressionism in the early twentieth century. Munch's early life experiences shaped his artistic vision. Losing his mother and sister to tuberculosis, coupled with his father's oppressive religious fundamentalism and mental instability, led him to be preoccupied with mortality. He channelled this morbid fascination into his art. Munch's artistic journey included formal training. At sixteen, he attended technical college before transitioning to the Royal Drawing School. He also received private art lessons and a scholarship to study in Paris with Léon Bonnat. While in Paris for the Exposition Universelle of 1889, he encountered the work of Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. These artists, along with his earlier training, helped him develop his expressive style. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s, Munch experimented with brushstrokes, colour, and emotional themes, creating etchings, lithographs, woodcuts, and paintings. His time in France led to a loosening of his style and a more expressive approach.
• Who was Edvard Weie?+

  Edvard Munch (1863-1944) was a Norwegian painter and printmaker. Born in Løten, Norway, he spent his childhood in Oslo (then Christiana). Early tragedies, such as the deaths of his mother and sister, affected his work throughout his career. Munch studied at the Royal College of Art and Design, where he gradually moved towards painting. He apprenticed with naturalistic painters Christian Krohg and Frits Thaulow. His early canvases from the 1880s, for example, Landscape, Maridalem (outside Oslo), show naturalistic influences, but he soon moved away from them. In 1883, Munch began to participate in exhibitions. In 1885, he started composing The Sick Child, and he also visited the Salon and the Louvre in Paris. Munch's canvases became indications of his emotions; they gave birth to Expressionism. His work caused a scandal at an exhibition of the Berlin Artists’ Union in 1892, and the space devoted to Munch was closed after a week. In 1908, he suffered a nervous breakdown and was treated in a Copenhagen clinic. Munch died in Ekely in 1944 and left his work to the city of Oslo.
• Why are Edvard Weie's works important today?+

  Edvard Munch (1863-1944) is important because of his impact on modern art, particularly Expressionism. His art explored themes of suffering, love, rejection, and loneliness. Munch studied art in Oslo during the early 1880s. His painting *The Sick Child* (1886) caused controversy due to its emotional intensity. From 1892 to 1908, Munch produced the works for which he is best known. His art from this period displays inner tension through vivid colours, swirling forms, and energetic brushwork. Munch's *Frieze of Life* is a series of paintings depicting life themes. *The Scream*, part of this series, exists in four versions and multiple lithographs. It conveys terror and mental distress through colour and composition. Munch aimed to capture emotional moods, comparing it to a gramophone replaying sounds. Living in Paris from 1896 to 1898, Munch created lithographs and posters for plays. By the early 20th century, his critical reception improved. Retrospectives occurred in Oslo and Berlin in 1927, with a graphics exhibition in Stockholm in 1929. Despite the Nazis removing his art from German museums in 1937, Munch's influence grew. His use of colour and line influenced artists such as Picasso, Kandinsky, and Matisse.
• What was Edvard Weie's art style?+

  His mature approach to art was shaped by visits to Italy and Paris, especially the work of Cezanne. His style was structural and colour-driven, more interested in form than in narrative. His later work grew increasingly abstract, moving from narrative mythological subjects toward pure observation of light and terrain.
• When was Edvard Weie born?+

  Edvard Weie was born in 1879 in Denmark. Edvard Weie died in 1943, aged 64.