Framoverbøyd kvinneakt c. 1920

Edvard Munch made this watercolor painting, Framoverbøyd kvinneakt, using flowing marks and a pared-down palette of earthy tones. Looking at it, you get a real sense of the making process, the movement of the hand. The surface is raw and immediate; the paper seems to soak up the pigment like skin. Munch uses thin washes of color, letting them bleed and merge, creating a feeling of vulnerability. The redness in the piece, clustered around the lower part of the figure is so evocative, you can almost feel the earth underfoot. Each mark has weight. It reminds me of Schiele’s nudes, but there is a softness here, a different kind of emotional weight. With this one, Munch seems to be showing us that artmaking is a search, not a find. It’s not about answers, but about embracing the questions.