Three Girls on the Jetty 1903

Edvard Munch made this painting of three girls on a jetty with oil on canvas. Look at the marks, how freely he moves between thin washes and thicker scumbles of paint. To me, it feels like he’s figuring out what painting is as he goes along, and that’s something I can really relate to. I love the way the colors interact, especially how the pink and yellow dresses of the girls on either side vibrate against the cool blues of the figure in the middle. And notice how the brushstrokes in the sky mirror the strokes in the water below, creating this sense of everything reflecting everything else. It’s like Munch is saying that the world isn’t just something we see, but something we feel and experience in our bodies. You can see that same process happening in the paintings of someone like Van Gogh, too. It's like the process of trying to capture a feeling takes over. The final image becomes less important than the act of reaching for it.