Stående kvinne med hatt 1921

Curator: Here we have Edvard Munch’s "Standing Woman with Hat," created around 1921. He rendered it with a blend of watercolor and charcoal. It's a seemingly simple, full-length portrait, but somehow...evocative. Editor: Evocative is right! The pale washes make it seem like a memory, fading at the edges. She’s almost ethereal, like a stylish ghost haunting a sun-drenched afternoon. There's an understated melancholy about her posture. Curator: Yes, and it’s important to remember Munch was always deeply concerned with portraying inner states of being. He wasn't so much documenting a person as he was conjuring a feeling. Considering his lifetime, it seems like a step towards confronting the changes in social role of women at that time. Editor: It does strike me that she's not quite…solid. Munch’s dissolving forms seem to embody a transient quality of the woman herself and hint towards uncertainty. It looks less like a composed portrait and more like catching a fleeting moment, when people feel truly vulnerable. Curator: Exactly! While his more famous paintings from the 1890s cemented his style of emotive angst, pieces like this made a bridge with modernism. It also reveals something more personal of Munch, it invites contemplation beyond despair. She has a dignity that prevents complete desolation. Editor: She really does. The blue accents—the hat, the shoes, the suggestion of her underdress—those lift it, somehow, away from complete darkness. And I think even the way the form isn’t precisely defined only serves to strengthen this delicate presence. Almost like the woman refuses to be pinned down. Curator: The politics of seeing! Indeed. And for Munch, who felt emotion so deeply and made that such a central tenet in his art, I imagine this was about rendering the interior as much as the exterior world of a very fascinating sitter. Editor: Right. There’s something intensely private captured in such few confident strokes...it has completely absorbed me. Curator: Me too, the subtlety here leaves a powerful impact, long after you step away.