Portrait of the Painter Ludvig Karsten 1912

Edvard Munch made this full-length portrait of the painter Ludvig Karsten with oil on canvas, and it’s like watching a dance unfold. See how the brushstrokes are visible and kind of raw? It’s like the painting is caught in the act of becoming. I can almost feel the artist’s hand moving, trying to capture something elusive. The figure emerges out of a wash of yellows and whites, with touches of contrasting blues and purples around the feet, as if the figure is rooted in the earth. I wonder what Munch was thinking as he painted Karsten. Maybe he was intrigued by his fellow artist’s persona, or maybe he just wanted to play with the way light and color interact. It’s wild to think about artists riffing off each other, inspiring and challenging each other across time. Each brushstroke is like a little question mark, inviting us to look closer and feel something new.