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6 Edvard Munch, The dance of life, 1899 – 1900
Edvard Munch’s ‘The Dance of Life’ and Piet Mondrian’s ‘Broadway Boogie-Woogie’ are modernist paintings that could both be argued to have the same goal; to effectively represent the human experience, including its emotions. Both works are modernist although different in approach. Modernism changed the purpose of art; artists were no longer beholden to a patron and art could become a self-expression rather than a rendering of the patron’s chosen subject.
“The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of arts audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist”4
Modernism saw artists reevaluating traditional methods, and both Munch and Mondrian chose to depart from traditional themes in order to explore their own subjective viewpoints.
Art in the late nineteenth century had begun to move towards abstraction. The beginnings of this shift are evident in Munch’s ‘The Dance of Life’ where he pushed the boundaries of representation and used abstract elements to depict his inner feelings. His choice of vivid colours and bold lines increased the emotional intensity of the work.
When looking at the painting, a strong horizontal shoreline draws the viewer’s gaze so it is read from left to right, focussing in sequence on three female figures of increasing age in the foreground (likely after Tulla Larsen, Munch’s fiancee from a tumultuous four year engagement). The two lone figures on either side are connected by the line of the horizon, drawing the gaze back to the left to complete the cycle. The men are all dressed in black with minimal facial detail, making them recede into the background. This emphasises the primary subjects of the painting- the three female figures who wear white, red and black; colours symbolic of the maiden, mother and crone. The setting sun is heavily outlined and mimics the posture of the lone older woman, calling forth the idea of ‘endings’.
After experimentation with abstraction began, the shift from representational to full abstract art happened within a decade, and the beginning of the new century saw Piet Mondrian experimenting with it. Influenced by Cubism, he moved to Paris in 1912 and his work became less representational and more abstracted from that time onwards. His new aim was to represent the universal human experience by distilling the essence and spirituality of nature into its purest form. He gradually discarded anything that did not further this goal – abandoning the use of curves, narrowing the range of colour, removing tonal shading, until eventually he arrived at the fully abstract ‘Broadway Boogie-Woogie’ in 1943, his final work, and the culmination of his aims.
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7 Piet Mondrian, Broadway Boogie Woogie, 1942 – 1943
In their efforts to portray emotion both artists examined different modes of expression, and naturally they were influenced by music, dance and culture. Piet Mondrian had moved to New York, which was rapidly becoming the centre of modern art, with the pioneering Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) and the beginnings of the New York School. It was said that “The metropolis fosters a situation where one must buffer him or herself from a constantly changing environment”2, and this is reflected in the work ‘Broadway Boogie Woogie’, which represents the grid system of new york- a world away from the gently curved highways of Europe.
The vibrant colour palette evokes a 1940s broadway scene with its bright lights, yellow taxis, vibrant billboards and bustling streets. The upbeat tempo of jazz and the boogie-woogie shows in the asymmetrical composition, and the shapes seem to move and shift as your eyes change direction, following the flow of the lines.
Where Mondrian sought to create order and harmony out of the wild nature of jazz, Munch embraced the raw turbulence of the waltzes of his time, which were described as ‘symphonic poems’. The rounded shapes and swirling linework bring to mind the circling motion of the dancers, and the cyclical, eternal dance of life. Amongst the movement of the crowd, the stationary nature of the two lone figures in the foreground is emphasised.
The differences in approach between the two artists can be explained by a widespread change in perspectives during the intervening period. Munch’s work was produced in the shifting economic landscape of Norway in 1900 where both urban and rural lives were impacted by the beginnings of industrialisation. He depicted a midsummer celebration that embodied traditional ways of life which were under threat by changes in policy that encouraged modernisation. Despite this, Munch took a Modernist approach by depicting the middle and working classes and themes that they could relate to, reflecting the attitude that art was no longer elitist.
“Realistic, naturalistic art had dissembled the medium, using art to conceal art; Modernism used art to call attention to art”1
After the brutality of the first world war, art moved away from romanticism and idealism, and became more existential. Artists were concerned with intellectualising and rationalising the absurdity of what was occurring in the world. Mondrian created ‘Broadway Boogie Woogie’ during the second world war, when he had fled Europe for New York City. This work represents a preoccupation with rational thought and science, “By doing away with natural form, they have eliminated that which stood in the way of pure artistic expression, the logical conclusion of every artistic concept”3. Despite this rationality, the painting is by no means cold; it represented a fresh sense of optimism brought about by modernism and the opportunity of the new.
References:
1 Greenberg, C. (1986). The Collected Essays and Criticism, Volume 4: Modernism with a Vengeance, 1957-1969. Israel: University of Chicago Press.
2 SIMMEL, G. The Metropolis and Mental Life, 1092, Harrison and Wood 2002
3 The De Stijl Manifesto, 1916
4A Cultural History of the Avant-Garde in the Nordic Countries 1925-1950. (2019). Netherlands: Brill.
Images:
6 ‘The Dance of Life’ By Edvard Munch – http://samling.nasjonalmuseet.no/no/object/NG.M.00941 Nasjonalmuseet / Høstland, Børre, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37709496
7 Piet Mondrian, Dutch, 1872-1944. Broadway Boogie Woogie. Oil on canvas, 1942-43. The Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.); Given anonymously. The Museum of Modern Art: Painting and Sculpture. Artstor, JSTOR, https://jstor.org/stable/community.14566862. Accessed 3 Nov. 2024.
Bibliography:
The History of Art. Spain: Blitz Editions, 1989.
Art: The Definitive Visual Guide. United Kingdom: Dorling Kindersley, 2008.
Critical Terms for Art History, Second Edition. United Kingdom: University of Chicago Press, 2003.
Kandinsky, Wassily. Concerning the Spiritual in Art. United States: Dover Publications, 2012.