Edvard Munch Quotes

Edvard Munch shares haunting reflections on art, life, and eternity that will draw you in.

27 quotes

1. I was walking along a path with two friends - the sun was setting - suddenly the sky turned blood red - I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence - there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city - my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety - and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.

2. Could only have been painted by a madman.

3. From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity.

4. I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love.

5. I painted from memory... the impressions of my childhood.

6. I painted the lines and colours that affected my inner eye... from memory without adding anything.

7. My art is rooted in a single reflection... my art gives meaning to my life.

8. One night I was walking along a lane, on one side stood the town and underneath the Fjord, I was tired and sick. I stopped to look beyond the fjord - the sun was getting down - the clouds were tinged with a blood-red, I heard a cry to cross Nature: I almost thought of hearing it. I painted this picture, I painted the clouds like true blood. Colours were crying

9. Without fear and disease, my life would be like a boat without oars.

10. When I paint, I never think of selling. People simply fail to understand that we paint in order to experiment and to develop ourselves as we strive for greater heights.

11. For as long as I can remember I have suffered from a deep feeling of anxiety which I have tried to express in my art.

12. The Academies of Art are nothing but great painting factories - those with talent are fed in at one end, and they come out as mechanical painting machines.

13. I was walking along a road one evening – on one side lay the city, and below me was the fjord. The sun went down – the clouds were stained red, as if with blood. I felt as though the whole of nature was screaming – it seemed as though I could hear a scream. I painted that picture, painting the clouds like real blood. The colours screamed.

14. I was walking along the road with two friends. The sun set. I felt a tinge of melancholy. Suddenly the sky became a bloody red... I stood there, trembling with fright. And I felt a loud, unending scream piercing nature.

15. The notes I have made are not a diary in the ordinary sense, but partly lengthy records of my spiritual experiences, and partly poems in prose.

16. A work of art comes only from inside a human being.

17. I sense a scream passing through nature. I painted ... the clouds as actual blood. The colour shrieked.

18. Youth must go ahead and prosper. These young painters are all very talented people, but they all paint frescoes.

19. But can they [great works] get rid of the worm that lies gnawing at the roots of my heart? No, never.

20. It would be quite amusing to preach a bit to all those people who for many years now have been looking at our paintings and either laughed or shook their heads reproachfully. They do not believe that these impressions, these instant sensations, could contain even the smallest grain of sanity. If a tree is red or blue, or a face is blue or green, they are sure that is insanity.

21. The viewers must come to understand the sacredness of painting, so they will remove their hats as if they were in church.

22. The way one sees is also dependent upon one's emotional state of mind. This is why a motif can be looked at in so many ways, and this is what makes art so interesting.

23. It is better to have a good painting with ten holes than ten bad paintings without any holes.

24. I don’t believe in an art that is not born out of man’s need to open his heart.

25. I find it difficult to imagine an afterlife, such as Christians, or at any rate many religious people, conceive it, believing that the conversations with relatives and friends interrupted here on earth will be continued in the hereafter.

26. My whole life has been spent walking by the side of a bottomless chasm, jumping from stone to stone. Sometimes I try to leave my narrow path and join the swirling mainstream of life, but I always find myself drawn inexorably back towards the chasm's edge, and there I shall walk until the day I finally fall into the abyss.

27. The rich man who gives, steals twice over. First he steals the money and then the hearts of men.