How to Read Paintings: The Death of Marat by Edvard Munch
A depiction filled with energy and emotional torment
This painting, titled The Death of Marat, is a writhing mess of blood and flesh, offering a nightmarish scene of murder and mayhem.
Like many of Munch’s artworks, the content makes for an unnerving concoction of serenity and violence.
Quietness reigns now that the frenzied struggle is over. The crepuscular hush that falls across the canvas feels moonlit. The atmosphere is like memory: unreal, hard to pin down, darkly nostalgic.
The Death of Marat is based on a real-life historical event, but it also echoes a dark episode in Munch’s own private life, one that would decisively shape his art and mental health.
A Bloody Murder
The Death of Marat was made in 1907, on the cusp of Munch’s later artistic period. (By way of a benchmark, he painted his most famous work The Scream in 1893.)
It was a deeply uncertain time for Munch. He had fallen into a long bout of depression, exacerbated by alcohol abuse, which eventually led to a mental breakdown and hospitalisation in the following year.
The title of the painting refers to Jean-Paul Marat, a journalist and political radical during…
