Munch and Picasso: an imaginary meeting that makes sparks fly

MalagaThe mature paintings of Edvard Munch (1863-1944) are often electrifying: it seems that the deeper the anguish that stirs him, the more he clings to vivid colors and the more energetic the brushstrokes are. This can be seen until February 28 in the magnificent exhibition Munch-Picasso, at the Picasso Museum in Malaga. Munch was born eighteen years before Picasso. He did not revolutionize 20th-century art, but sometimes his more academic works are more striking than the avant-garde ones of the artist from Malaga, as is the case with a female nude on her knees on a bed that looks like a still from a love scene. Without leaving nudity, on a personal level, Munch would undress on the beach and paint groups of naked men. It seems that, although he was not a prudish man, this male intimacy remains far from Picasso's universe.

"Munch and Picasso never managed to meet or get to know each other, but they maintain a conversation in the universal language of art," states the exhibition curator, Paloma Alarcó, former head of the second half of the 19th-century and 20th-century painting collections at the Thyssen Museum in Madrid. "Through the language of art, Munch and Picasso share many life experiences as well as artistic experimentations. I immediately realized that the works of one and the other were expressed with a mysterious and enigmatic resemblance," explains the curator. This eagerness to break the established limits of painting caused both of them to be rejected at times. On the other hand, both maintained romantic relationships that were at times destructive.

Picasso discovered Munch in Barcelona, before leaving for Paris, primarily through Ramon Casas and Santiago Rusiñol, and also through Miquel Utrillo, who had been working as a correspondent for La Vanguardia in Paris since 1889. Later on, it is highly probable that he was able to see his works in the French capital. "For me, Munch and Picasso are the two great figures of art in the first half of the 20th century. It is true that they belonged to two very different worlds, that they had antithetical personalities and very different spirits. Southern, earthly, expansive, excessive and sensual, we already know who. The other, Nordic, spiritual, introspective, intellectual and troubled," says Alarcó. "Their styles and techniques are also different, although many of their concerns converge. Their intentions are, on many occasions, similar. Both questioned the artistic and social structures of their time, and they shared the purpose of shaking up old beliefs. And they succeeded. Both created a new language, a distinctive and experimental visual language, and drove innovation in modern art," explains the curator.

One of the first exhibitions in which the works of both coincided was the Sonderbund, in Cologne, in 1912. Munch and Picasso were the only two artists who had their own room. There, Munch was able to see the Cubist figures of the man from Malaga, which left a subtle mark on him. "Neither was Picasso so distant from the artistic movements of the north nor was Munch alien to the historical avant-gardes, such as Cubism or Surrealism, which claimed him. In the exhibition, one can see Picasso emulating Munch, and on other occasions, Munch shows a subtle proximity to Cubism," points out Alarcó.

The Malaga exhibition, which is sponsored by the Unicaja Foundation, is the result of a special collaboration with the Munch Museum in Oslo. On Thursday evening, the inauguration was attended by Queen Sonja of Norway. The exhibition includes about 104 works, some of which are rarely seen, such as a Picasso drawing of a tablao flamenco in Barcelona, coming from the foundation of the Malaga-born artist's grandson, Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, and a night view of the rooftops of Barcelona, deposited at the Zurich Art Museum. The latter is from the time when the artist from Malaga had his studio in a dilapidated building on the now-defunct Riera de Sant Joan street, which was demolished during the construction of the Via Laietana. Among the lenders are the Picasso Museum in Barcelona and other major museums, such as the Reina Sofia and the Thyssen in Madrid, the MoMA in New York, the Tate in London, the Picasso in Paris, and the Albertina in Vienna.

The links between art and life

Alarcó has organized the tour based on the idea that, in Munch and Picasso, art and life are deeply intertwined. Some experts do not agree with the biographical interpretation of the works, but in this exhibition it proves revealing. The first area is dedicated to the self-portrait, a subject that interested both of them from a very young age. "Both Picasso and Munch wanted to closely control the image they wanted to project of themselves," says the curator. The self-portrait continues until the end, when Munch portrayed himself sitting on a bed, with a cadaverous face, and Picasso, longing for lost sexual potency, appears among female nudes and an exquisite vagina. "At the end of his life, Picasso reinterpreted himself as if he were younger," says the curator. In this same area, one can also see how both worked on the theme of the painter and the model, with a more theatrical treatment in the case of Munch.

The protagonists of the exhibition are the great themes: love, desire, and death. The tour continues with the impact of the illness and the losses that both suffered. Munch was a child when his mother died of tuberculosis, and a teenager when his older sister died of the same disease. A few years later, his sister Laura was admitted to a psychiatric hospital while still a teenager. In Picasso's case, in 1895 his sister Conchita died in A Coruña, an event that caused him a permanent fear of illness, represented in the exhibition by a preparatory watercolor of one of his first great paintings, Science and Charity. In Munch's case, one can see an engraving of The Sick Child, which preserves the aggressive technique of the painting.

The next area is dedicated to nocturnality. "Both had a great fascination for the night; they worked at night, especially Picasso. They went out to the bohemian haunts of Christiania, Paris, Barcelona, Berlin... And they associated with bohemian circles and the most radical literature," explains Alarcó. It is here that one can see the night view from the studio on Riera de Sant Joan street. As for Munch, one of the most prominent works is The Storm, in which one can see a group of women covering their ears from the deafening sound of thunder, outside the coastal hotel where they are staying. It is from 1893, the same year as the first version of The Scream.

Some angelic women and others monstrous

The female imagery occupies a prominent place, between the vision of the fragile woman and the femme fatale. And the repertoire is even more varied: there are everything from angelic characters to women with overwhelming hair, vampires, and others halfway between mythological creatures and monsters. "Munch and Picasso lived in an era of change; it is the moment when women began to have a lot of prominence. They had a double feeling of fascination for the incorporation of women into society and, at the same time, fear of losing their authority. Munch even said that he lived at a time when man had become the weaker sex," says Alarcó, who then raises the dichotomy between love and pain in the romantic relationships of both artists.

The most notable thing in this area are the versions that both made of The Death of Marat, starring themselves. The Charlotte Cordays who murder them are, respectively, Tulla Larsen and Olga Khokhlova, represented as monsters. In 1902, during a struggle with a revolver at Munch's house, Larsen's gun went off and the artist was wounded in his left hand, which caused him to lose a part of a finger. After years of a stormy and obsessive relationship, that fight made them break up for good. As for Picasso, the origin of the painting is found in the moment he began to reject Khokhlova while Marie-Thérèse Walter was entering his life. There is also the hypothesis that the painting represents Khokhlova murdering Walter. "There are very prestigious authors who do not accept the biographical vision of Picasso or Munch, but I defend it, of course, with experimentation behind it. Here Picasso is experimenting with surrealism," points out Alarcó.

The end of the exhibition is dedicated to the evolution of the female nude: from naturalism to cubism, in the case of Picasso, and towards rather abstract details, in Munch's. And, finally, to the joy of living, expressed through male nudes. While Picasso often uses faun characters and other Arcadian figures, Munch had his feet more on the ground and had documented his naturist days on the beach.