Workers in the Snow 1913

Edvard Munch's “Workers in the Snow” at the Munch Museum in Oslo, is a landscape filled with figures rendered with thick paint. Munch is pushing and pulling at the materiality of the medium. Here, paint isn’t just describing something, it’s *doing* something, like snow being pushed around. See how the surface is built up, almost sculptural? It makes you feel the cold, hard labor. Look at the central figure's face: the dark, almost violently applied strokes that define his features. It’s raw, immediate, and full of feeling. It's like Munch is wrestling with the paint, trying to get at something true and human, maybe something about the weight of work. You might see something of Van Gogh in the way Munch lays down paint, that same intensity. But Munch is very much his own man, paving the way for the Expressionists. It's a reminder that art is always a conversation, building on what came before.