Coastal Landscape 1918

Edvard Munch laid down this coastal landscape with strokes of blues and greens. You can see how the painting comes into being, shifting and emerging through intuition, but also, I think, error. I wonder what it was like for Munch to paint this, trying to capture what he saw—the sea, the trees, the land—but also what he felt. The paint is thin in places, thick in others. It's all about how these elements shape our experience of the painting. Look at the curves he's painted into the landscape, almost like waves in the ground. They're all about communicating feeling. You know Munch was always looking at other artists, thinking about how he could contribute to the conversation. Artists are always in conversation, across time, inspiring each other. And painting, well, it's all about embracing the questions, allowing for many readings.