Salome 1903

Curator: This is Edvard Munch's "Salome," housed here at the Harvard Art Museums. The dark, stark quality immediately makes me think of love and death intertwined. Editor: Absolutely. You can almost feel the texture of the lithographic crayon on the stone, and that dense, almost suffocating inkiness gives the piece such emotional weight. Curator: Yes, it's incredible how he uses those simple materials to express such complex feelings. It reminds me of the stories we tell ourselves about desire. Is it destructive? Is it creative? Editor: And who benefits, right? The process here, lithography, allowed for multiple reproductions, making this accessible to a wider audience, but also maybe diluting the impact. Did Munch consider this the death of the original? Curator: Perhaps. Or maybe he saw it as a way to spread the feeling, to let more people experience the darkness and the light. Editor: It certainly makes you think about the cost of art and the art of cost. Curator: Indeed. Let's move on.