Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

Chapter Two: Heidegger and Munch: Anxious Dasein

“Munch is a painter of ghastly masks, shattered by life’s horrors, of heads which seem gnawed off and wasted away from within.  He is a painter of skulls which have been burnt and shrunk in the fires of modern hells.” (Salda, 149)

Throughout his life, Edvard Munch suffered from a deep, powerful anxiety, which he believed was pivotal to his existence. In his private journals he wrote: “Still I often feel that I must/ have this life - angst - it is essential/ to me - and that I would not exist/ without it - ” (18). The exact reasons behind his constant feeling of angst cannot be truly defined, and according to most scholars, the blame is to be placed on his troubled childhood. The latter explanation, however, is contradicted when one considers with Heidegger that “the face of which one has anxiety is characterized by the fact that what threatens isnowhere . Anxiety ‘does not know’ what that in the face of which it is anxious.” Although anxiety does not have an object, we cannot infer on this basis that is it a mere vapor. InBeing and Time , Heidegger goes on to say that anxiety innot being there “is so close that it is oppressive and stifles one’s breath, and yet it is nowhere” (231).

One cannot claim to have found the reason behind the artist’s anxiety when such a claim would go against the definition of the feeling itself. Heidegger believes that “anxiety [. . ] is the basic state-of-mind of the finite Dasein” (Cassirer, 162). Anxiety defines authentic Dasein’s being-in-the-world as well as its segregation from inauthenticDas Man , who fall under “the kind of Being of everydayness” (Heidegger, 164).

Several elements contribute to expressing the artist’s anxiety. The titles of Munch’s paintings, such asAnxiety (1894) andThe Scream (1893), speak for themselves.  Furthermore, the dominant colors in his works - indigo, blues, and reds - also aid him in terms of projecting his powerful angst. His choice of subject matter, especially in his earlier paintings that were finished prior to his psychotic episode ending in 1909 (Steinberg and Weiss, 409), along with his highly developedhestekur technique, further serve as an important tool of expression. Munch himself , as well as certain figures in his works, is the epitome of the anxious Dasein. Through his own words as well as his works and techniques, his overbearing anxiety shines forth, pulling him away from fallenness and “putting him into direct contact with nothingness” (Harman, 107).

Anxiety (1894), often referred to as “Angst,” evidently shares the red-and-yellow threatening sky ofThe Scream (1893). The blood-red sky vibrates with the soul of the uncanny, filling us with an air of anxiety even before we look at the figures in the foreground. Munch painted “mask-like numbed faces and eyes wide open with terror, as if driven by an invisible power and without a will of their own” (Xani, 48); the cropped, “groundless” figures appear to be at “the mercy of external forces,” being driven to follow a certain, unknown, and possibly discarded, path (Crockett, 63), highlighted by the demonic sky. The figures are staring at the viewers in a rather provoking manner as they walk towards the “unknown,” possibly

the pace of their death, and this movement emphasizes the temporality of Dasein, according to Heidegger (Sheehan, 10). They are moving towards both - the “all-knowing” and the “un-knowing” - faces of death (Kroug, 400), filling them with all-powerful anxiety.

Other than the strong coloring used by Munch for his sky, the yellow tones used for the faces of his figures is also salient and clearly symbolizes a loss of vitality and sense of corruption (Harris, 4). As the eye travels from the foreground to the background, the faces gradually start losing their features as they flow backwards into the horizon.  Staying partly hidden, however, the figures stand out, being concealed, in other words, in not “showing it all.” The now-anxious spectator is forced to think, knowing that only a part of the whole is being presented, and this once again raises the level of anxiety. One could also wonder: Who are these figures? Are they each an authentic Dasein, or - since they seem to be following each other rather blindly - are they in fact Das Man? Is the artist trying to punish the masses, which possibly rejected him by casting a “spell of anxiety” upon them? The latter interpretation appears to be true, mainly due to the gradual deletion of facial features from many of his street figures, making them anonymous - a simple “crowd” -  thus Das Man.

In 1893 Munch painted his most iconic work to date,The Scream , sometimes referred to asThe Cry . “Obsessed by the tragedy of existence” (Karpinski, 126), the artist viewed life itself as fearful, haunted by painful memories and ailments rooted in his past.  Most of his works are a clear depiction of his inner, anxious Being, allowing us to label him as “authentic,” according to Heidegger’s definition of the term. In his private journals he clearly described this overbearing and anxiety-filled experience. He “felt a great scream,” and “the lines of nature - the lines and colors vibrated with motion” (Munch, 64), explain the vibrating and undulating lines used in his work.

The epitome of existential agitation, the artist strived to depict the anxious and lonely human being, or Dasein, confronted with suppressed existential dread (Xani, 48) in nature, a nature that does not console, but rather screams (Bischoff, 53). Munch was known for painting what he remembered and not what he directly perceived.  For this reason,The Scream is a perfect example of the artist’s recollection and heightening of specific memories. Facing the spectator, the somewhat nebulous figure once again provokingly draws attention to itself as it seems to move towards death. Better yet, it could be moving towards the death and anxiety of all mankind (Schneede, 50). Is this authentic Dasein, carrying the burden of anxiety due to the insensitivity of its inauthentic companions? In view of the latter possibility, “Munch shared the belief that illusions are shattered and all faith destroyed through contact with reality” (Lund, 64).

Munch’s pessimism in this regard resonates with Heidegger’s belief that authentic Dasein, once in contact with anxiety, suffers at least to some degree. Munch painted the head in a skull-like manner, suggesting that he was trying to free it from its case but also to produce the impression that he sought to keep it intact. The central figure was given a prominent spatial position to convey a powerful message, that of a break with reality (Eggum,

4). His “explosive statement of psychological excitement” (Longman, 13) is rooted in his ontological anxiety as well as in his fear of non-being (Lacoque and Loeb, 99). In addition, the central figure seems to have made his acquaintance with the uncanny, which in itselfis bound up with anxiety (Bernstein, 111). The absence of nose and ears further supports the idea that the scream is not heard, at least by no one else, because anxiety is too taut for it to find an outlet in vocalization (Zizek, 46-48). Its “fetal features” (Zizek, 52) could suggest that the figure is once more being reborn, after having left an inauthentic life behind. According to Heidegger, “to undergo an experience . means that this something befalls us, strikes us, overwhelms us, and transforms us . the experience is not of our own making . we endure it, suffer it, receive it as it strikes us, and submit to it” (Kenny, 100).

It is no secret that Edvard Munch took an interest in the esoteric world and possibly saw auras, which are “fine, ethereal radiation or emanations surrounding each and every human being” (Panchadasi, 4). InThe Scream , a mild aura seems to combine both a sickly lemon yellow, indicating intellectual power, and a slate, murky green, indicating deceit and malice (Panchadasi, 14). The artist’s free and large brushstrokes, which clearly resonate strength and movement, have a strong underlying emotional tone. The artist in this way captures a moment in which he cracks under the psychic forces that are pressing down on him - or the figure (McCarthy, 11). Munch represents a century’s anguish, as well as his own, but was well aware that his contemporaries would link his blood-red sky to the explosion of Karakatoa, the Indonesian volcanic island, which turned the skies, especially at sunset, into a bloodshot hue (Olsen et al, 133). Nevertheless, Munch managed to let his work “speak,” to use Heidegger’s terminology, thus transporting the spectator and “revealing the distant and deeper origin of being” (Long, 100). InThe Origin of the Work of Art , Heidegger explains that “in the work is truth, not only something true, that is at work” (54). In other words, a work of artis the authentic site for the happening of the truth (Long, 100).

InEvening on Karol Johan , painted in 1892, Munch chose to depict Oslo’s main road, with the parliament building as well as the Grande Hotel café (Schneede, 40). The spectator is faced with a moving mob, dominated by pale and ambiguous faces, coming closer and closer; “the crowded pavement is full of movement, yet the figures are dressed as if in mourning, and the features of the nearest walkers are almost skull-like - not much sign of spring here” (Ingles, 15). The staring faces are filled with apprehension and hostility, repeatedly viewed as a representation of the “clamp-down” by the Norwegian government - and that of the bourgeois - on the freethinking bohemians, a group to which Munch belonged (Ingles, 15). Another interpretation is linked to the artist’s breakup with Milly, his obsessional love; after she left him and returned to her stable marital life, he started frantically looking for her on Karl Johan (Seidel, 53), feeling “so alone . people who passed by looked strange and awkward . all these faces stared at him, pale in the evening light” (Smith, 56).

The looming force of the crowd is laced together with tremendous anxiety, due to Munch’s cropping technique, which in itself creates an air of unease. The dark blue sky acts as a velvet shield, disguising the terror felt down below, keeping it intact; the sky forms a bubble around the inhabitants, or das Man. The sun has set far away, reminding us of human mortality. A terrified crowd moves away from this ominous scene, while a single figure gazes into the darkness ahead of him. The viewer catches sight of someone in the background who seems to be aware of his separateness - and also that death is inevitable. The viewer of the painting is also driven into the distance, just as the people themselves move steadily away from us and vanish into the remote background. The man looks on as the light fades and death seems to define this melancholy world as a whole.

Nevertheless, the latter analysis is not the sole one. The following should be considered as well: the single black figure, with its back towards the spectators, is moving against the stream, which “evokes Munch’s own situation as a radical artist” (Smith, 56). Heidegger suggests, however, that the figure’s movement could be interpreted more universally; the lone figure, presumably the artist himself, would then be interpreted as an authentic Dasein, moving against the stream of inauthentic beings in his midst. This one figure understands that he is a distinctive entity and thus has a sense of his own authenticity in contrast to what he must confront in his immediate surroundings (Warnock, cited in Hornsby, 3).

Puberty of 1895 is the third version of this work, while the first was destroyed in a fire. The artist in this painting depicts a naked young girl, an anxious protagonist, filled with the realization of her imminent physical and psychological transformation into a woman. Seated upon a bed, she is menaced by a large “amorphous” (Ehrenpreis, 499) shadow to her left that evokes the anxiety she feels. There is a feeling of tension in the painting that comes from the anxiety felt by the young girl threatened by the terror of the unknown (MoMA, 2), revealing her “determination and fragility.” She confronts the viewer with a haunted stare (Ehrenpreis, 481). The young girl is without protection and is thus subject toExistenzfurcht , fear or existence, as well asTodesängste , or the fear of death (Schneede, 46). Sexuality is seen as an overwhelming force (Slatkin, 13), pressing down on its ‘victim’. One may translate the latter awareness into an acknowledgement that death is near: with the girl’s maturity comes her growing awareness of aging. Thus Heidegger’s notion of being-towards-death seems appropriate as a phenomenological description in this case. She is completely alone, and the haunting shadow only serves to individuate her further as she “changes rapidly from virgin to femme fatal” (Ehrenpreis, 499).

The relaxed yet self-controlled (Smith, 70) protagonist inSummer Night’s Dream (The Voice) of 1893 carries a calm and projecting expression. The lone figure is once again an adolescent girl “at the brink of sexual awareness” (Jayne, 28). In addition to her static pose, the lack of detail suggests the feminine as a symbol (Jayne, 28), as opposed to the depiction of a specific woman in relation to the artist. The young girl is depicted in the psychological state of “becoming aware” (Zogaris, 20). Filled with anxiety, she is evidently stiff, in other words, she feels her inner

sexual will rising for the first time; she is not yet accustomed to it, and is thus unsure of how to react. Dressed in white, carrying an innocent expression, the protagonist is eager, yet vulnerable (Jayne, 28). Her wide and staring “vampire-like eyes” (Zogaris, 20) could be linked to the protagonist’s slow, but gradual, transformation into the seductress, which later appears in another version ofThe Voice (1894-95). 

Nevertheless, the chosen title still raises a few questions. Through looking at Munch’s works in relation to his titles, we observe that he favors ambiguous titles or multifaceted ones. In this case, according to Zogaris, the woman’s sexual desire is associated with an inner voice that is trying to push its way out of her (21). It is also vital to note the positioning of her arms, namely, behind her back. The latter appears in numerous works by the artist and symbolizes the figure’s readiness to present herself to the man, while also holding herself back (Frossman, 528). Nevertheless, her hair, which is tied up in a neat bun, shows the spectator that she has not yet reached the femme fatal stage, in contrast to some of the women depicted in other works, such asVampire (1893),Ashes (1894), orThe Voice (1894-95). The reflection of the moon, another symbol that appears in numerous works, clearly represents the male personage in this painting (Zogaris, 21).

Chapter 3: Munch  -  Combining Heidegger and Kant

“Let the body die but save the soul.”

(Munch, 183)

What began as a warm image of a nurturing woman, gently planting a kiss on her lover’s neck, gradually transformed into an evil, life-destroying, and blood-sucking ‘femme fatal’, giving birth to Munch’sVampire , painted in 1893 (Ingles, 29).   Possessing “a deceptive quality of floating gentleness” (Smith, 66), the work, originally titledLove and Pain , is far from soothing. The spectator is faced with a woman sucking the strength out of the man - enveloping and strangling him with her long fiery-red hair - while he passively submits to his fate (Smith, 66). The woman’s hair - which can both “envelop and strangle” (Harris, 7)  -  acts like a net, catching its prey to devour it, while at the same time uniting the figures as one; it also represents the desire for unity as well as the fear or being dominated and destroyed (Schneede, 60).  Arne Eggum adds that “the woman dominates . [and] her red hair binds him to her like a Medusa” (qtd. in Nierhoff, 40).

Stanislaw Przybyszwski gives a sharp and descriptive analysis of the painting:

There is something terribly peaceful, passionless about this painting, an inexpressible fatality of resignation.  The man rolls deeper and deeper into the abyss, powerless.  He is happy that he can roll like a stone with no will of its own.  He will never be able to get away from the vampire, nor from the pain, and the woman will always sit there and will bite him for all eternity with a thousand tongues of vipers, with a thousand poisoned teeth. (qtd. in Nierhoff, 39)

The embrace of the woman carries an air of the masculine - the dominant one. The male figure, on the other hand, is giving in out of weakness, not trust (Nierhoff, 41).  The forceful dark shadow surrounding them ‘outshines’ the tender embrace, setting an anxious mood. The man is presented as a pitiful object, while the woman in her maturity becomes terrifying (Karpinski, 128).

Munch was suspicious of women throughout his life, “describing them as vampires” (Steinberg and Weiss, 413), and thus choosing never to marry.Vampire is an allegory “of the battle between sexes” (Heller, 82 qtd. in Nierhoff, 40), and whether the woman is kissing or biting him remains uncertain to some (Nierhoff, 41). Nevertheless, one is indirectly forced to wonder about the man’s stance; why is he not trying to protect himself? Is it possible that he is trying to erase his sins? Is he trying to eradicate a sense of guilt? Driven by sexual desire, he is driven to the woman for relief; nevertheless, he falls victim to the consequences of his desires (Zogaris, 24).  In terms of Heidegger, another analysis could be developed. It is possible to view the woman as an authentic being, while the man, perhaps in this case, “Das Man,” is ‘being punished’ for his lack of authenticity. One could also think in terms of being-towards-death. The man senses “the painful brevity of (his) time and the arbitrariness of life that is not really in [his] control” (Lacoque and Loeb, 95), which is why he is passively ‘giving in’ to the woman. Dasein throws itself into being-towards-death in theact of love as

well asthrough love and/or care, which encompasses both death and guilt (Kroug, 404).

InAshes (1894), the spectator is primarily faced with a troubled woman, grasping her head, dressed in a white half-open dress with long, flowing red hair. The man in the painting seems to be intentionally hiding his face. The setting is rather clear; a dark forest. The protagonist, the woman, stares straight-ahead  - meeting the spectator with terror in her eyes, as opposed to looking at her lover. Her red hair extends to the man, trying to envelop or devour him (Schneede, 61). She is dressed in white, symbolizing the innocent virgin in accord with the majority of Munch’s paintings. Nevertheless, it is clear that her dress is half-open; in addition to her flowing hair, she is gradually losing her virginal qualities - because presumably an erotic act has taken place (Zogaris, 24)  - and turning into the artist’s femme fatal. The enveloping hair is present to remind the couple of what was, or remains, a sign of pain (Schneede, 61). One could also look at this depiction in terms of original sin; the work presents a paradise lost, a break with an illusionary world. In more metaphorical terms, the figures in this painting have torn the veil of maya and are entering into their authentic existence. EchoingVampire (1893), here, too, the sexual act has a negative impact on the man; it has driven him away in despair (Zogaris, 24). It is vital to note that in the 1980s “sexuality was seen as an overwhelming force embodied in the woman as seductress to which man must submit” (Slatkin, 13). The cut log on the bottom of the painting symbolizes thoughts of death and remorse (Loshak, 278); nevertheless, it appears to be transforming into smoke; according to Schneede, the latter symbolizes the dead flame of love, leaving only ashes behind (61).

In order to analyze the woman’s mental state and to understand her clear gestures, one could look at this work through Kantian, as well as Heideggerian, eyes.  The woman is currently standing in a dark forest, accompanied only by her lover, who seems to have abandoned her, and numerous trees. She feels alone and is overwhelmed by the forest. As she looks around, she only sees more trees and darkness. The woman suddenly feels the true might of the forest; in other words, she experiences Kant’s dynamic sublime.  She starts off filled with anxiety, due to her now-failing love affair, and then notices the surroundings, which she ignored before due to being consumed by lust. The protagonist is currently in a “crisis,” which is supposed to be followed by “recovery” (Liu, 189), if the subject is to truly experience the sublime.  Furthermore, she experiences “a certain loss and non-presence of self” (Bernstein, 1126); in other words, she experiences the sublime just as she looks up and notices her true surroundings. 

According to Heidegger, “truth is set to work” in a work of art, and “to be a work, means to set up a world” (Heidegger, 43). Ashes as a work does indeed reveal a truth to the observer; it reveals the truth of the lovers - the earth - as well as the break with inauthenticity, or the plunge into authenticity - the world. “The world,” Heidegger contends, “is the self-disclosing openness of the broad paths in the simple and essential decisions in the destiny of a historical people. The earth is the spontaneous forthcoming of that which is continually self-secluding and to that extent

sheltering and concealing. World and earth are essentially different from one another and yet are never separated” (Heidegger, 47). Earth shows us the obvious, which is the clear setting to be observed. World, however, goes beyond that, un-concealing the earth and exposing what lies beyond it. This work truly “makes manifest what beings as a whole are” (Bruin, 454) and is thus labeled “great art” in Heidegger’s discussion.  From a simple love affair that is about to end, filled with remorse and regret, Munch allows the spectator to see that, in addition to opening up a ‘world’, art allows truth to happen.

In 1895, Munch paintedDeath in the Sickroom , one of the very few group portraits representing his entire family. Through his choice of color and space manipulation, he managed to clearly represent the anguish, despair, and grief experienced by his family as a result of tuberculosis. In the background, the spectator sees a bed, presumably where his oldest sister Sophie lies dying (Ingles, 34). Munch’s praying father next to the bed is a clear “protestant sentiment” (Smith, 62), on behalf of the artist. The figure leaning against the wall on the left is presumably the artist himself, while sister Inger stares at the spectators with their brother Andreas standing behind her (Smith, 62). Painting from memory, Munch commonly depicted “things he was afraid of loosing” (Steinber and Weiss, 420), and through reading his private journals, we can learn that he lived under a constant shadow of fear and anxiety, especially when it came to losing family members and loved ones to an illness. “Cut off from one another in their mute suffering” (Hume, 2), each of the family members “stands isolated and numb in their emotion” (Kivelitz and Selter, 22); each stands in a preemptive state of mourning, laced with anxiety. “Frozen in passivity” (Kivelitz and selter, 22), the figures are depicted as they were at the time this work was completed, not as they were when Sophie died sixteen years earlier (Ingles, 34), an arrangement that once again highlights Munch’s active imagination.

Furthermore, we know that the Munch family lived in a small house, and yet the artist painted a large room, proving that “his presentation of his memory is . .  larger than life” (Lathe, 206).Death in the Sickroom focuses on the family rather than Sophie; hence, “death is depicted from the point of view of the survivors” (Kivelitz and Selter, 22), making this work more universal and granting “a definition to human reality” (Singh, 217), by presenting death, and thus opening up a ‘world’. The sickly green wall, orange shade of the floor and the black-framed picture in the background are all symbols of the family’s exhaustion, which appear in other works on the same theme that concern the passage from life to death (Smith, 62). Through the vanishing lines on the floor, the artist structures his perspective; furthermore, “figure and space are in a state of tension that metaphorically makes the moment of passage from life to death tangible” (Kivelitz and Selter, 22).

Dominated by “the surrounding menace of death” (Heidegger, qtd in Stulberg, 259), the figures around the child are unable to run away from their own death, or even form their own idea of death.  The protagonists - or at least the artist’s sister, Inger - are experiencing “pre-abs-ence” (Sheehan,

314). Inger’s immediate presence anticipates her future state, in other words, death. The only figure painted with clear, tired, and anxious eyes, Inger has accomplished her transformation from inauthentic to authentic, through her “incomplete presence that shades off into absence” (Sheehan, 314), and “here it can become manifest to Dasein [or Inger] that in this distinctive possibility of its own self, it has been wrenched away from the ‘they’” (Heidegger, 307).

Upon first glace,Woman in Three Stages (Sphinx) (1894), is a depiction of three female figures along with one male. The three women remind spectators of the traditional representation of age, and yet they could also be the splitting of one woman into three (Schneede, 66). “The virgin, the whore, and the crone” (Ingles, 41) represent one woman who is a saint, a seductress and, at the same time, an unhappy lost soul (Schneede, 66). The young woman dressed in white symbolizes the beginning; in her youth, she is “self-absorbed, inhibited and unapproachable” (Karpinsky, 127). As she gradually transforms into a femme fatal, she becomes “a seductive menace, a danger to hopelessly attract man”; the woman becomes “withdrawn . disillusioned and emotionally withered . no longer agitated by passion, she has not emerged to peace of harmony”; nevertheless, in any of her facets, she is “a being who eludes man” (Karpinsky, 127). Hence, the woman once again confirms Munch’s fear of intimacy as well as his belief that “woman with her different nature is a mystery to man - woman who is at the same time saint, whore and an unfortunate devotee” (Harris, 7).

Apart from the three women, a man stands to the right; his eyes are shut and his left hand is lifted towards his head. Could the three women be products of his imagination? One could arguably state that this is true; his body language, starting with his hand, implies the taking place of a mental process, followed by his standing position (with his back turned towards the women) could be interpreted in a symbolic manner: he does not see the women; he does not belong to their world.  It is possible that the man is the protagonist, who, through his pain and grief, gives birth to the three different women (Schneede, 66)? What further separates him from the women is the red “blood flower” he carries in his right hand (Schneede, 66). Sometimes referred to as the “flower of pain” or “blood lily” (Xani, 49), it stands for pain and loss of luck, appearing in other works by Munch.

Painted in hues of black and brown, the man and the crone melt into the background of the dark woods. The artist chose to paint the third of the women in a dark color, signifying her withdrawn femininity, which allows her grief to prevail. In fact, she has become a “silhouette staring sightlessly towards the viewers out of deep-lying, dark eye sockets” (Xani, 49), She refrains from making contact, which becomes evident through her passive, yet rigid, pose. With her arms behind her back, she is ready to meet death (Xani, 49). It is vital to note the positioning of the arms with respect to the different women. As a virgin, her arms are in front of her, protective and innocent, unaware and unknowing. Looking at the central nude woman, we notice that her arms are gradually moving backwards; she is open for sexuality, completely exposed, and yet not passive; she refuses to let go. Looking at the woman, we see that she has moved her arms behind her

back, while staring ahead; she has abandoned “Das Man” and is now anticipating her own death. Her passivity is laced with anxiety, and “in this state of mind, [she] finds [herself]face to face with the ‘nothing’ of the possible impossibility of [her] existence” (Heidegger, 310).

The role of the male protagonist, whether an authentic Dasein or not, can be disputed. On one hand, he seems to be abandoning the women, by turning his back on them and walking away. If one were to say that the female figures represent “Das Man,” as those who “provide aconstant tranquilization ” (Heidegger, 298), would it be true to say that the male protagonist is in fact an authentic Dasein? On the other hand, if the women are figments of his imagination, he is the figure in whom “nothingness and anxiety meet [and] dwell together” (Meinertz, 51). At the same time, he is the one who is turning his back on authenticity; he is, in fact, running away, abandoning his anxiety and his awareness that death will surely catch up with him.

Heidegger’s concept of being-towards-death comes to life in Munch’sSelf Portrait: Between the Clock and Bed (1940-42).  This painting depicts the artist in his bedroom, literally standing between a faceless-and-armless clock, with his bed on the right and his paintings behind him.  Judging from his tired facial expression, he is “an old man encountering death, where he is in his merciless self-analysis” (Eggum, 6).  Almost an ‘object’, just like the bed and the clock, “it is as though Munch forces himself to stand to attention against Time (the clock) and Fate (the bed)” (Smith, 36).  Facing the front “passively but stoically” (Loshak, 282), his arms hang down his sides - he is unable to paint - and mock the armless clock, while his stiffness is mocked by the nude female figure, possibly alluding to past lovers (Loshak, 282), While not presenting any self-pity in this work, he “seems to be accepting the inevitable final conflict between life and death.” (Harris, 24).

The clock with a blank face and hands suggests that “time has run out.” (Harris, 24). The latter also hints the erasure of time, “just as the lifetime experience contained in his own lifeless head will shortly be erased, but survive in the pictures around him” (Harris, 24). Blankly facing the front just like the protagonist, the clock only refers to thepassage of time, since the exact time of death can never be clearly stated (Loshak, 282). The clock without hands is also a reference to a scene from Goethe’sFaust in which Mephistopheles announces the death of protagonist, while adding, “the clock has stopped.” (MoMA, 3). Furthermore, the choice of the clock’s location, namely, behind the artist, tells the spectators that most of his time has passed (Loshak, 282).

With his paintings hanging on every wall, representing his work and concerns, Munch has left his past and stepped forward into the bedroom that symbolizes “the passive phase of life adjacent to death” (Loshak, 282). Now in the foreground, the bed “in which we are born and die” is placed next to the artist (Harris, 24). The bed is now bed and waits to claim him (MoMA, 3). The red and black lines of the bedcover, which is “reminiscent of a flag draped over a catafalque” (Smith 36), show Munch’s awareness of the ongoing and never-ending struggle between life and death (Harris, 24). The

truncated bed also symbolizes a death-to-be-met-soon, andbecause the state of death is in itself timeless, the artist chose to paint a two-dimensional, flattened pattern (Loshak, 282).

During the two-year period needed to complete this painting, the artist was in constant anticipation of his own death, which “turns out to be the possibility of understanding one’sownmost and uttermost potentiality for-Being - that is to say, the possibility ofauthentic existence ” (Heidegger, 307). Smith contends that “the activity of self-presentation, matched by the swirling brushstrokes and dripping paint, particularly around the bed, suggests that Munch was worried that time might run out before he finished this painting” (36). Other than the strong symbols in this painting that are used to depict this state of apprehension, more subtle details also support it.  Looking at the light distribution, we notice a warm yellow hue in the background that perhaps suggests the artist’s past, while the surroundings becomes harder as the figure moves forward into the present and approaches death. Furthermore, judging from the look on his face, the artist is not sad or anxious. As a matter of fact, he seems to have experienced strong anxiety from 1940-1942 and is now aware of having “lived through” something. In the process of creating this work, Munch has become an authenticDasein , anticipating and accepting his own death, and he now walks willingly towards it. 

White Night (1901) depicts Munch’s view of nature as eerie, moving and overwhelming. He chose a cool color palette to express the latter emotions, dominated by hues of grey, blue and green. The “frozen, glittering clarity, modulated by the forms of the trees in a panoramic view,” are a true evocation of the Norwegian landscape (Smith, 35). Depicting the sublime in nature, Munch chose to refrain from painting any figures in order to allow “an expansiveness to emerge” (Smith, 35), turning the spectator into the protagonist. An uncanny stillness in the trees in front of the pine-fence allows the viewer to feel safe haven. But in looking beyond the dense pines in the middle ground of the painting, one is overcome by an uneasy feeling, perhaps due to the “Idea of its infinity” (Kant, 116). The snow on the ground is, or was, in movement; either way, not much time has passed sincesome sort of presence was there. We surmise that the sun has just set from the timid rays that enter the painting from the top right. Furthermore, the chosen texture for the sky denotes chaos. 

Munch chose to eliminate a human protagonist in order to force a “movement of the mind” (Kant, 105) with respect to his spectators, opening up a world for them to dive into and experience to the fullest. Presumably, Munch also believes that “the sublimity must be sought only in the mind of the [subject] judging, not in the natural object” (Kant, 117); in this case, the natural object is the artist’s depiction of nature. The further one looks into the painting, the smaller one feels, truly dwarfed by nature, frozen under its spell and powerfulness. Heidegger would relate this feeling of anxiety to a force that compels Dasein to face being-towards-death, and thus become authentic. The painting is also a strong depiction of Kant’s dynamical sublime, which is “a pleasure that arises only indirectly” (Kant, 102). By allowing us to experience the sublime through the painting, “we (the

spectators) can regard an object asfearful without being afraid of it; . if we judge of it in such a way that we merelythink a case in which we would wish to resist it, and yet in which all resistance would be altogether vain” (Kant, 124).

Behind the young dancing couple in the foreground ofThe Dance of Life (1899-1900), lost in a moment of “tranquility and absorption” (Gerner, 28), “a wild crowd of people are whirling - fat men biting women in the neck - caricatures of strong men embracing the women” (Munch, qtd. in Smith, 94). The painting depicts the “allegorical division of the women into three stages of love that Munch discerned,” namely, a young virgin with open arms, a dancer dressed in red, obscurely associated with power and knowledge, and a figure in black who merely gazes at the dancing couple with “her hands clenched tightly in front of her” (Smith, 94). Unlike the crone inWoman in Three Stages (Sphinx) , the woman in black refuses to let go and meet death: the positioning of her hands in front contracts with the hands of the virgin that are kept behind her back. While this painting evokes the biological clock (Smith, 94), due to the identical facial features of the virgin and the crone, implying that they are the same person (Gerner, 29), one needs to note the mask-like face of the man embracing the white-dressed woman behind the crone.

According to Smith, this mask-like figure “has affinities with 16th century German images of death dancing with a young maiden” (94). The qualities of that face could suggest Munch’s knowledge of being-towards-death; in this case, ‘death’ is only dancing with the ‘virgins’. Whether they are aware of it or not, the artist is also making a simple point: death can come any time and at any age. If, however, the girlsare aware of what they are doing, then they are literally embracing death, and are thus becoming authentic.  In contrast, the crone stares at the dancing lovers, ignorant of what is going on behind her; a member of Das Man, she tranquilizes herself, turning her back on the presence of death, which is symbolized by her firmly clenched hands and her position on the canvas.

Munch’s works epitomize anxiety, fear, despair and - using Heidegger’s term - being-towards-death. The artist establishes truth, which is “the bringing forth of a being such as never was before and will never come to be again.” (Heidegger, 60). He opens up a new world in which one cansee authenticity happen and also one in which the spectator can experience an inner transformation, as brought about through anxiety and in relation to the latter. Even when his painting is a harmoniously deceptive landscape, Munch’s rough brushwork, orhestekur , and his choice of darker hues overshadow his work, increasing its power, presence and effect, overwhelming the spectator, pulling the viewer in while also reversing that action. The internal transformation, due to the artist’s now open world, creates a struggle and yet stimulates the senses in a remarkable manner. 

Munch entered the frame of art with pain, grief, and anxiety, and yet those same three elements, which first allowed his passage into art, grounded him, allowing him to daringly expose a different world with the hope of being understood. Through Munch’s creations, which are filled with pain yet intertwined with a certain beauty that forces the spectator to marvel

at them, Heidegger and Kant - two varyingly different philosophers - often meet, through the sense of pain in relation to a sublime threshold and in being-towards-death as a mark of Dasein’s finite existence.