Bathing Men on Rocks 1915

Edvard Munch made "Bathing Men on Rocks" with oil paint, and when I look at it, I see a real sense of experimentation and process in the way he’s applied the paint. The colours feel quite arbitrary in a way. The rocks are all these swirls of greens, yellows and oranges, and the bodies are various shades of pink and red, but then there’s a blue figure, like a shadow, and I love how unexpected it is. The paint has a real physicality, it's not overly thick, but you can see the strokes of the brush really clearly. You can imagine him moving the paint around, making decisions as he goes. It's a technique reminiscent of Van Gogh and artists who allow their process to be visible. It's hard to say exactly what Munch was trying to convey with this piece, and maybe that’s the point, you know? Art is as much about the questions as it is about the answers.