Summer Evening

The image is divided vertically into two almost equal halves. To the left, a man and woman stand in the shade on a veranda, while to the right a view of a lush, sun-drenched coastal landscape opens up before us. A perfect setting for a romantic tale from the bright Nordic summer nights. Instead, however, we witness a chilling chamber play about emotional coldness and distance. Throughout his life, Edvard Munch was preoccupied with psychologically stunted romantic relationships. The interest first manifested in this big picture. As models, he used the Norwegian theatre critic Sigurd Bødtker and his own youngest sister, Inger, but the accuracy of their likenesses is not important here. Rather, they have been cast in roles: Inger, who was 21 years old at the time, is portrayed as a middle-aged woman. Her closed-off body language forms a distancing counterpoint to the posing man. The picture was painted in the summer of 1889, when Munch settled at Åsgårdstrand, a fishing village on the west side of the Oslo fjord. Its coastal landscape would go on to appear as the poignantly animated panorama seen in the background of several of Munch’s best-known images (50 Favorites in the SMK Collection).