The Girls on the Bridge 1901

Edvard Munch's (1863-1944) art is so closely associated with themes of anguish and despair that it is easy to forget that he also painted scenes of great lyrical beauty. When this painting was made he was based in Germany, but he frequently returned home to Norway, and this charming picture was completed during one of these brief interludes. The scene is set on a bridge leading to the steamship pier at Asgarstrand, where Munch rented a house during the summer. This is an early version of the subject but, as was his custom when he was happy with an image, Munch reworked the theme endlessly, experimenting with different arrangements of the figures. He aso tried it out in different media: along with several paintings of this subject, he also produced lithograph and woodcut versions. On one level, Munch's painting is a celebration of the long summer nights in Norway, when it never got completely dark. Indeed, the original title of this picture was Summer Night. In addition, though, it is also about the sexual awakening of the girls. In this context, the phallic shape of the tree takes on a new significance. During the 1890s, the artist conceived the plan of linking a number of his pictures together to form a Frieze of Life, which he described as "a poem of life, love, and death." One section of this was devoted to puberty and the first stirrings of innocent desire. Here, Munch may have been influenced by Frank Wedekind's controversial play, The Awakening of Spring (1891), which dealt with the subject of adolescent love.