Arne Eggum (1987) Yale University

…[in] …the self-portrait photograph from the bathroom at the clinic…The exaggerated foreshortening of his naked body is rather sensational considering the fact that the photograph was taken with so simple a camera. From this photograph onwards his art was influenced by new attitudes which both changed the subject-matter and at the same time literally gave it a new perspective.

The exaggerated foreshortening which gives the upper part of his body a peculiar solidity is also seen in many of Munch’s drawings from 1910 illustrating Ibsen’s play John Gabriel Borkman … In these drawings Munch is so close to the subject that the massive figure almost falls – or, perhaps better, leaps – out of the picture space, creating its own disquieting dynamics, dynamics which may be considered Munch’s answer to the magical movement the Italian Futurists cultivated in their paintings.

This is continued and elaborated in the master work Workers on their Way Home (1913), in which the street is crammed full of workmen swarming towards us. The men in the foreground shoot out of the picture space, almost like projectiles. The foreshortening technique with the enlarged torsos is the same as in the drawing of John Gabriel Borkman.

Munch’s technique for rendering transparency is most obvious in the foreground figure to the left, whereas the centre figure’s legs are seen moving in a primitive fashion, almost detached from the ground. The red and green mask-like faces, the stiff gazes and the stillness evoke an atmosphere of unreality and a poignant dream-like state of fear.

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