Critical study of Edvard Munch and Edward Hopper - two artists whos work was executed mainly during the early and mid 20th century

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Critical Study

I decided to look at two artists whose work was executed mainly in the early and mid 20th Century.

Edvard Munch was born in Loten, Norway, on December 12 1862 and died in Ekely, near Oslo, on January 23 1944.

Edward Hopper was born in Nyack, New York, on July 22 1882 and died in New York City on May 15 1967.

I thought it would be interesting to compare these two artists of whom one, Munch, lived in and worked in Scandinavia and Europe surrounded by a vast historical wealth of art and music and the other, Hopper, who lived and worked in the still very much developing society of artists and musicians in America.  It is fair to say that, as far as art is concerned, America was still very much a ‘New World’ by comparison to Europe.  They did, however, share some common denominators in their respective lives.  In the early and mid 1900s both Europe and America experienced huge industrialisation, economic instability, depression, political turmoil and wars.  Although in the case of America the wars were remote and mostly only the young men sent to fight experienced first hand the horrors of fighting unlike Europe where every level of society was affected and involved in long recovery.

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The first thing I noticed in comparing the work of these two artists is the difference in their styles.  Munch leans towards expressionism in style with clear symbolism of emotions like misery and sickness.  This may be a reflection of his own life experience at the death of his parents, a brother and sister.  Spending much of his time between 1892 and 1908 in Paris and Berlin, following his first visit to Paris in 1885 he was influenced by French painters, the impressionist and post-impressionists as well as ‘art nouveau’ designs.  There is nothing vaguely geometric about any of ...

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